


Amidala's Successor

by MissChrisDaae



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awesome Leia Organa, Fairy Tale Retellings, Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, Gen, No Incest, Past Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Pre-Star Wars: A New Hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2020-09-27 16:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20410468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissChrisDaae/pseuds/MissChrisDaae
Summary: When Leia Organa publishes an essay on Padmé Amidala, Darth Sidious decides to make her the successor to the late Senator in all things, arranging a marriage between the Princess and Darth Vader.But this is one order Vader will not follow, and in telling Bail Organa of the Emperor's plans, he unknowingly sets the young princess on a path that will lead her to discover truths that have been hidden for nearly two decades, truths that alter everything.—A Star Wars adaptation of the fairytale "Donkeyskin."





	1. Whose Beauty Equals Hers

“Leia, what is that?” Bail Organa watched as his daughter rifled through a large crate. It looked like the same kind she would get from the tailors, but he couldn’t remember her having any such appointments or fittings recently. Moreover, Leia was usually the type to favor practicality over fashion, for her to be so engrossed in clothes was rather out of the ordinary. “You aren’t supposed to getting any new gowns, are you?”

“No, they’re not exactly new. They’re a gift,” Leia said, holding out a small holodisc. “See for yourself.”

Bail took it hesitantly and slid it into his datapad, activating the recording and wincing as the Emperor’s face came into view.

“_My dear young Princess, I was quite impressed by your recent publication, ‘Amidala the Martyr.’ It very much captures the spirit of my dear colleague, and with that in mind, I have sent you this gift. It is the late Senator’s wardrobe, requisitioned from Naboo’s Royal Archives. I am sure dear Amidala would have approved of another such spirited and intelligent young woman inheriting her belongings. Wear them in good health, my dear. I look forward to seeing your career progress.” _Bail shut off the holo by closing his fist around it so tightly that the metal bit into his skin.

_ Padmé’s wardrobe. I suppose it’s only right Leia inherits something that belonged to her mother, but to have it come from the Emperor… _ It did not sit well with him. He and Breha had striven to afford Leia every protection, both from the Emperor _and _Darth Vader. “I wasn’t aware you were publishing your old schoolwork,” he said to his daughter. Leia stopped looking at the purple silk of one of Padmé’s Senate gowns, turning her brown gaze to her father curiously.

“Did I do something wrong? You liked that essay when I showed it to you. Though if the _ Emperor _ likes it, I might have been a little too subtle in my criticisms—”

“Leia, I’m not comfortable with you being noticed by the Emperor at all,” Bail interrupted. “It brings unwanted attention, especially since you started getting involved with _extracurriculars. _”

“The Emperor is already well aware of me.”

“Lelila, don’t tempt fate, I’m begging you,” Bail implored, touching his daughter’s shoulder and using her childhood nickname for emphasis. “For your mother’s sake and mine, if nothing else. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be seen wearing those gowns in public.”

“Why?”

_ Because doing so would make your relation to your birth mother that much more obvious, and there is a very good chance you would either be killed or taken from us, _Bail thought bitterly. If nothing else, it would surely be a death sentence for him and Breha, if Vader ever learned the truth. And that was before taking the secret of Luke into account.

“Because, Leia,” he sighed, “I am asking you to, as your father, and as a commander. There are times when you simply have to take orders without asking for justification.”

“Seems like something a dictator would do.”

“_Leia._”

“Alright, fine,” she huffed dramatically, grabbing the case with a scowl. “I don’t understand, but fine. I’ll go put these in my closet.” Bail watched her go with pursed lips, trying not to take it too personally as he retreated to the study where his wife sat attending to the affairs of the planet.

“Should I even ask what’s going on between the two of you?”

“Leia has received a gift from the Emperor. Padmé’s old wardrobe.”

“Did he explain why?” Breha asked, setting down her datapad with a frown.

“Allegedly, it’s because he was impressed by her writings on Padmé, but I’m as concerned as you are,” he agreed as he sat next to her and started rubbing her shoulders. “I told her to put the clothes away and I hope she won’t do anything else to get the Emperor’s attention, but—”

“But she’s reckless,” Breha finished. “Hot-headed. Eager to do good and prove herself.” Bail rubbed at his temples, wincing as she described the qualities they’d tried to avoid. The qualities of Anakin Skywalker. Breha reached out, placing a hand on his arm. “B, he was a hero once. And what happened to him was awful, but just because Leia inherited a few traits from him, that doesn’t mean she’ll go down that same Dark path. _ We _ raised her better than that, you know we did.”

Bail took her hand and kissed it softly. “You’re the best woman in this galaxy, you know that?”

“I’ve heard it from time to time,” she laughed, and the warmth of her smile made Bail relax, just a little. Whatever the Emperor had in mind for Leia, for the moment, was forgotten.

* * *

“Lord Vader.”

“What is your bidding, my Master?” Vader looked up at where the Emperor sat upon the throne. There was something different in the old man’s Force presence today, a sort of wicked glee that made Vader feel ill at ease. Of course, pain and anger were the way of the Sith and the Dark Side, he lived with both every day. But this was different somehow, and he disliked the uncertainty of it.

“Tell me what you think of Princess Leia Organa.”

The command came as a surprise to Vader, but his mind obeyed in an instant. “I think of her as an upstart and a Rebel, Master. What other thought could possibly be needed? She will be dealt with in time, as all Rebels will.”

“A good response for a military commander,” Sidious admitted, tapping his fingers slowly on the arm of his throne. “But is there nothing else?”

“Nothing of importance, Master.”

“You are technically correct, but fail to grasp the bigger picture, Vader.” Palpatine leaned forward. “I have been considering her lately, and I find her to be clever, passionate, and beautiful. In many ways, she positions herself as the successor to the late Senator Amidala.” Instinctively, Vader’s fist clenched at the mention of Padmé. “And it is with that in mind, Vader, that I have devised exactly how we shall deal with our young princess.”

The feeling of uncertainty turned into dread and repulsion. “Master?”

“A marriage, Vader,” Palpatine explained coldly, his sickly yellow eyes burning through the red lenses of Vader’s mask. “You have mourned your wife long enough. It is time for you to do your duty for both the Empire and the Sith. You will marry the princess, and in doing so, bring Alderaan to heel. And through her, you will continue the line of the Sith.”

The dread and repulsion clashed together in a wave of nausea. _ Remarry. Replace Padmé. Replace the baby. No. _

“This is not a request, my Apprentice,” Sidious warned, rising from the throne and descending the steps towards Vader, who remained kneeling, every muscle he had left clenched in anticipation of the pain that was surely coming. “It is a _ command_. I have foreseen that Leia Organa’s children will be strong in the Force, strong enough that they might even match you. And I will not have that be out of our control.”

The lightning hit suddenly and without warning, powerful, hateful currents burning up his prosthetics and into his remaining organs. It took all of his strength not to crumple to the floor until the lightning subsided. “Am I understood?” his Master snarled, and for a moment that stretched out into eternity, the only sound was Vader’s respirator filtering the air passing through his lungs. Then Vader bowed his head.

“Yes, my Master.”

“Good.” Palpatine returned to the throne, looming over him. “The Viceroy is scheduled to be in Imperial Center tomorrow. A meeting will be arranged between the two of you, to negotiate the terms of the engagement. Make it clear to him as I have to you that this union _ will _ happen.” He paused to let out a brief cackle. “It will be torture for him. I shall enjoy that.”

“Of course, Master.”

“You may go now. Do not fail me.”

“Never, Master.” Even for the automation of the vocalizer, Vader’s response became robotic as he rose, bowed and left the throne room. As soon as he was sure he was out of range, he slammed his shields up around his mind.

That _child _would not, _ could not, _ replace Padmé, in any way. He had committed countless atrocities in his lifetime and had no qualms about any of them. But this...

Not this. It would mean betraying his Master, betraying the Empire, committing treason, but this was the one thing the remaining shred of his conscience would not allow. He would not let that insignificant _ brat _ take the place of his Angel.

* * *

Bail nervously fiddled with the silver vambrace on his wrist as he waited. The phrase “private audience with Lord Vader” was never a good one to hear, but to hear it so soon after Palpatine’s gift to Leia made it all the more unsettling.

Vader seemed to almost materialize in the room, entering with no other sound than his respirator to indicate his arrival. “Organa,” he said tersely.

“Lord Vader.”

“I will be brief.” He made no effort to sit, or even move, remaining in the doorway like the shadow of death itself. “It is the Emperor’s wish to see me wed to your daughter.”

“That’s impossible!” Bail fought back the urge to vomit, pouring every ounce of the limited strength he had in the Force into guarding his mind before the thought of ‘_ she’s your daughter’ _ could rise and betray Leia. “You cannot… Leia is far too young—”

“Cease your histrionics, Organa, I have no more interest in this than you do,” Vader interrupted, and Bail felt the pressure of the Force pushing him down further in his seat. “That is why you will heed me when I tell you to send the girl away, somewhere that Imperial Forces would not be able to find her, and they _ will _ be sent to find her.”

Of course they would. If the Emperor wanted this abhorrent marriage to happen, he would do whatever he needed to in order to see it through. “Why are you helping her?”

“My reasons are none of your concern.”

“How do I know this isn’t some trap meant to take down my family and my—” The air was pressed out of his throat as Vader’s dark power encircled him, lifting him upwards as he clawed at his neck and gasped for breath.

“Keep pushing and see how long my goodwill lasts, Organa. I could always follow through on my Master’s orders and simply have your daughter’s marriage bed double as her funeral pyre,” Vader warned. “Am I understood?” Bail nodded weakly, the only indication of consent he could give. The man who had once been Anakin Skywalker released his hold, letting Bail fall to the floor in a crumpled heap. “I suggest you return home and make the arrangements as quickly as possible.”

“How do you know we’re not being watched right now? That this entire conversation hasn’t already been overheard and reported back to the Emperor?”

“I am a great many things, Organa, but I am not so foolish as to leave such an obvious loose end.” The vacant black lenses of Vader’s mask bore into the very core of Bail’s soul. “Make sure you do the same.”

* * *

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, come on, Mother, what’s the harm in one party?” Leia complained, holding the pale yellow spectra-dyed silk against her body. It shimmered in the light of her bedroom sconces, the silver bands on the sleeve sparkling slightly. “You _ know _ I’d look beautiful in this. And I usually _ hate _ dressing up, I thought you’d be happy that I was excited for once.”

“I am, Leia, but you heard your father. You can’t be wearing them.”

“Since when does Father run this family?” Leia retorted with an impish twinkle in her eyes that made her mother shake her head.

“You’re not turning me against him that easily, dear.”

“So, can _ you _ tell me why he doesn’t want me wearing them?” Her mother looked down and away, and Leia’s intuition told her that yes, her mother _ could_, but she _ wouldn’t_. “Why not?”

“There are something’s it’s safer for you not to know, Leia.”

“Mother, that is not an answer!” Leia huffed, stuffing the dress back into its place in her wardrobe. Breha pursed her lips as the personal commlink on her wrist began to buzz.

“B, what is it?” she asked, turning it on for both her and Leia to see. The blue-tinted holo tweaked in and out of focus, making it unclear whether or not he was actually distressed. “Did the meetings go badly?”

“Good, you’re both there.” He let out a long exhale that confirmed to Leia that he wasn’t in a good mood. “Leia, I need you to pack as many of the gowns that the Emperor gave you as possible into one travel case that you can easily carry.”

Leia raised an eyebrow. First she wasn’t supposed to wear the gowns and now this? Something was off. “Why?”

Her father hesitated, swallowing before he spoke. “Because you’re leaving Alderaan.”

“Bail,” her mother spoke before Leia had the chance. “What happened?”

“If she stays, the Emperor has plans to marry her to Vader,” he answered grimly. “I was informed this afternoon.”

“_Vader_?” Leia repeated incredulously. She hadn’t even considered the Emperor’s right-hand man to be _human_, but he must have been, given how strong Imperial anti-miscegenation legislature was. “I don’t understand, couldn’t this be a good thing? I could be a spy in the heart of Imperial operations—”

“Absolutely not,” her parents said in such immediate unison that she nearly jumped.

“Breha…”

“I know. I’ll take care of everything else,” her mother promised. “We love you.”

“I love you,” her father repeated, looking straight at Leia. “Force willing, you will understand soon.”

“Tell me now!” Leia demanded, but her mother shut off the commlink. “_ Mother! _”

“Do as your father said and start packing. Use the stealth case.” Her mother’s tone was grave, as if this were a particularly grim session at court, and Leia hesitantly obeyed her, taking out the slim grey case and popping it open before she started pulling dresses from the wardrobe. Her mother moved closer, removing the pins and ties that held Leia’s elaborately styled hair in place. 

“Your hair was always so beautiful,” she sighed, wistfully running a hand through the loose brown waves. “Like a waterfall of silk. You’ll need to keep it braided and out of sight when you leave for Tatooine.”

“_Tatooine?” _Leia repeated. An Outer Rim planet dominated by gangsters and smugglers? Had both her parents lost their minds? “Why can’t I go to an Alliance stronghold? Surely there’s somewhere I could be useful.”

“The point of this is to get you out of danger, Leia, not deeper into it.” Her mother’s hands began to work steadily through her hair, twisting it into a single plait. “You’ll have the chance to fight for the Alliance one day. But right now, you need to trust us.”

“It seems as if _you _don’t trust _me. _Why won’t you say more?”

“Because, Leia, if you’re caught by Imperials before you reach Tatooine, it will be in your best interest to know as little as possible.”

“You think I could fail?” The prospect hadn’t occurred to her, but now that her mother had brought it up, she couldn’t _ stop _ thinking about it. Would she be arrested? Executed? Or would the Emperor still make her marry Vader?

“We have to account for the possibility.” Her mother finished the plait and began to rummage through the wardrobe, choosing a pair of leather trousers and a dull brown tunic.

“I won’t let myself fail,” Leia swore and her mother just smiled sadly and handed her the clothes.

“Change quickly and don’t get cocky. I’ll finish packing for you.”

“Yes, Mother,” Leia sighed, taking the proffered clothes and going to her changing screen. She stripped off the white court dress she’d been wearing and pulled the shirt over her head, then kicked off her white slippers so she could more easily pull the pants on. “Will we see each other again?” she asked nervously.

“I hope for nothing more than that.” Her mother’s hand reached around the screen with a pair of socks, a sturdy set of boots, and one of her darker cloaks. “You’ll have to go out through the servants’ entrance and make your way to the spaceport on your own. From there, you use the dresses to barter for credits or passage itself to Mos Eisley. Save the jewelry for when you reach Tatooine.”

“I understand, Mother.” Leia pulled on the socks, then the boots, and finally, wrapped the cloak around her head and shoulders before stepping out. “How do I look?” Her mother pursed her lips and moved closer, smudging at Leia’s face with her fingers.

“You should be safe at least until you leave. But remember to take your blaster too.” Leia couldn’t help grinning. She would have brought it along anyway, but it was nice to have her mother’s blessing all the same.

“I love you,” she blurted out, pulling her mother into a hug. “Tell Father that, won’t you?”

“Of course.” Her mother pressed a kiss to her forehead. “And we love you too, so much. I included a chip with further instructions, play it when you feel it’s safe.”

“I will. And I’ll come back,” Leia promised fiercely. “I won’t let this be the last time we see each other.”

* * *

“Look, I don’t like it either, but fuel is fuel, and we needed it,” Han snapped as Chewie yowled in protest. The Wookiee shook his massive furry head, and Han rolled his eyes. “Aw, come on, we’ll be back on our way to Tatooine in no time.”

“You’re going to Tatooine?” An unfamiliar feminine voice came from over his shoulder, and Han turned and looked to see its owner, a tiny brunette woman whose head barely came up to his armpits.

“Maybe,” he said breezily.

“I need to get to Mos Eisley,” she informed him, unexpectedly sharp brown eyes looking him over, then Chewie, then the _ Falcon. _ “You’re flying in _ that_?”

“_That _ is the _ Millennium Falcon_,” Han scowled at the insult to his beloved vessel. “You won’t find a faster ship in the galaxy, but if you’re gonna insult it, I don’t think I want to take you anywhere.”

“Forgive me if I’m concerned about getting to my destination alive,” she snapped. Han was about to make a retort when Chewie put a paw on his shoulder. “Can you take me or not?” the girl asked.

“Can you pay? Ow!” Han rubbed the back of his head where Chewie had just hit it. “What? It’s not an unreasonable question!” His copilot’s responding growl was very clear: _ play nice. _ The girl unbuckled the case she was holding, displaying stacks of clothes and jewelry neatly folded and compressed into the tiny space. Han reached out and fingered one of them. “Not my style.”

“Then sell them,” she said slowly, as if she were explaining this to a five-year-old. “Trade them. Give them to a girlfriend you inexplicably have. Or your boss’s girlfriend.”

Han cringed, thinking of Jabba. “My boss tends to like his girls wearing a lot less. And are you _sure _ you want to go to Tatooine? You could well end up working for him.”

“I’m not looking for a job.”

“Most women who work for him aren’t.”

She cocked an eyebrow, as if she were considering asking him to explain further, but thought better of it. “The fact remains, we both want to go in the same direction, so take me to Mos Eisley, and I’ll give you a quarter of what I’ve got in here.”

“Three quarters.”

“Three tenths.”

“Half.”

“Maybe.” She shut the case firmly. “But I pick which half.”

“How do I know you won’t give me the garbage stuff?”

“How do I know you won’t sell me out to your boss?” she countered. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

Han snorted, but Chewie extended his paw to the girl, howling in greeting. “Ugh, fine. But only because my copilot likes you.” The girl took Chewie’s paw, her expression changing to one of bemusement as she shook with him.

“Thanks for that…”

“Chewbacca,” Han supplied. “And I’m Captain Han Solo.”

“L—” she paused. “Tsabin.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “Yes, you should call me Tsabin.”

“Get on board then, Tsabin. As soon as we’re fueled up, we’re leaving.”

* * *

“_Gone? _” Sidious hissed, and Vader quelled the urge to flinch as the lightning crackled above him, destroying the wall hangings.

“So reports the envoy we sent to Alderaan with the Viceroy,” he answered smoothly. “Queen Breha must have objected and sent the girl away.”

“Quarantine the planet! Place the Royal Family under house arrest!” his Master fumed. “And if that will not draw her out on its own, find her and drag her back here yourself, do you hear me, Vader?”

“Quite clearly, Master.”

“Go. _ Now. _”

* * *

“Uncle Owen, _ please_!”

“I said no,” Luke’s uncle said firmly as he made the exchange for the new adapters. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

“That’s your excuse for everything.” Luke kicked one of the pebbles at his feet, watching it skitter across the sand until it knocked into a pair of boots that looked far too nice to belong to anyone he knew. “Sorry, I hope that didn’t scuff them.” He looked up at the boots’ owner, shocked to see one of the most beautiful girls he’d ever laid eyes on. She had a long, regal kind of face, with high cheeks, a pert nose and hair almost the exact same rich shade of brown as her eyes that framed her pale skin in little wisps along her forehead. If he’d been smoother, he might’ve thought of something to follow it up, but his mouth and his brain seemed to have been disconnected, and what was more, there was something achingly familiar about her that he couldn’t quite put into words.

“It’s alright.” She tugged the hood of the cloak wrapped around her hair a little tighter. “Do you happen to know where I might be able to find Obi-Wan Kenobi?”

“I know a Ben Kenobi, but not an Obi-Wan—”

“Luke,” Uncle Owen cut him off. “Come on, we need to finish.” But then he caught sight of the girl, and all the color drained out of his face behind his beard. “_You_.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t believe we’ve met,” the girl said, furrowing her brow in confusion. “I was just asking your son for help finding Obi-Wan Kenobi. Or maybe the Lars family, if you know them?”

“I’m the head of the Lars family,” Uncle Owen said gruffly, and the girl’s eyes widened.

“Then I’m relieved to have found you,” she said, smiling at him.

“Does this mean we can go?” For the first time, Luke noticed the older man and the Wookiee standing behind the girl. She rolled her eyes, facing him.

“Yes, by all means. I left your payment in the cabin on your rust bucket.”

“Great. Let’s never do this again.”

“My thoughts exactly,” she retorted, looking briefly at the Wookiee. “Take care, Chewbacca. Don’t let this one get you killed.” The Wookiee let out a deep howl that might have been a laugh, and the man scowled, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him away towards the Mos Eisley Cantina.

Uncle Owen looked between Luke and the girl before he let out a long sigh. “I suppose you can join us for dinner. You wouldn’t be safe here and it’s no less dangerous to travel at night. The Tuskens would get you for sure.”

“The what?” the girl repeated.

“Tuskens,” Luke said. “They’re locals that aren’t exactly welcoming of outsiders.”

“Oh.” The girl frowned. “Mother didn’t mention them.”

“Luke, take her with you, get the tools we need and then meet me back at the speeder.”

“Yes, Uncle Owen,” Luke sighed, turning back to the girl. “Come on… sorry, I just realized I don’t know your name?” He felt a blush creep over his cheeks, but he wasn’t sure if it was from embarrassment or simply how striking she was compared to the bleakness of the world around her. She hesitated, her pink lips pressed into a thin line.

“Leia,” she said finally. “My name’s Leia.”

“I’m Luke, Luke Skywalker.” He offered her a hand to shake as they started walking towards the junk shop. Why she hadn’t given a family name, he didn’t know, but she probably had a reason.

“Skywalker?” she repeated curiously as she briefly took his hand in greeting, squeezed and released. “Any relation to the Hero with No Fear?” Luke looked at her blankly. “Anakin Skywalker?” prompted Leia. “Surely you must have heard of him at least once or twice. Or is Skywalker just a common name here?”

“Not that I know of,” Luke admitted slowly, trying to process what she was saying. “And it’s definitely weird, my father’s name _ was _ Anakin Skywalker, but he was just a navigator on a spice freighter.”

“Odd,” Leia agreed, fingering the handle of the case she was holding.

“Do you need help with that?” Luke offered.

“Thank you, but no, I’d rather not let go of it.” She shifted it from one hand to the other, so that it was in between the two of them. “So, then, your uncle would be your mother’s brother, I suppose? Or the husband of one of your parents’ sisters?”

“My father’s stepbrother, actually,” corrected Luke. “My grandmother married Uncle Owen’s father. My father and Owen didn’t know each other that well, but when my parents died, he and Aunt Beru were the only family I had.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Luke promised hurriedly, not wanting her to think she’d upset him somehow. “You didn’t know. But do you mind if I ask why you’re looking for us? And Old Ben?”

“My mother said I’d learn why when I met all of you. But I’m afraid it’s still a mystery to me.”

“Well, I hope we can help you figure it out soon.” There was definitely something bigger going on here, Luke could feel it, like an invisible pressure at the back of his head, and at the center of it was the strange affinity he felt for this mysterious, beautiful girl.

* * *

He had sensed it as soon as they’d made contact. Master Yoda had been right to order the twins’ separation. Even untrained and blind to their connection, their combined presence was a beacon, and he could only hope that no one else had sensed it. “This changes quite a lot of plans,” he heard a familiar voice say from over his shoulder.

“I suppose they get that predilection from their father. And his Grand-master.” He turned to face Qui-Gon’s shimmering manifestation in the Force. “They’ll come to me.”

“Assuming Owen Lars yields.” The reminder of past exchanges with the moisture farmer made the former Jedi cringe. “You have prepared for this moment for nearly twenty years, my old Padawan,” Qui-Gon scolded. “And now you must prepare _ them_. Tell them everything, no matter how deep your instincts may run to shield them from the truth. The future from here is uncertain and they must not be caught unawares.”

“Everything,” Obi-Wan repeated slowly, his mind wandering to Padmé in that delivery room on Polis Massa. To Mustafar and air that had burned as strongly as Anakin’s eyes while his former Apprentice screamed those three words at him.

_ I HATE YOU! _

“Everything,” confirmed Qui-Gon. “For they have a long battle ahead of them, and must have every weapon at their disposal.”

Obi-Wan glanced at the hidden chest that held the relics of his past life. “You know I will do my best not to fail you, Master.”

“To fail _ them_,” his Master corrected, and Obi-Wan bowed his head in agreement. As Qui-Gon’s presence dissipated, Obi-Wan took a long, slow breath before retrieving the chest.

Anakin’s lightsaber would probably work for Luke, but it might be unwieldy for Leia, and it would be inconvenient to force the two of them to share. So, Obi-Wan had passed the hours creating a new lightsaber and trying to figure out exactly how he would tell them. Hopefully one day, the twins would be able to travel to Ilum and find their own crystals, but for now, only the Force knew how much time they had. When that was finished, he let sleep claim him, but it was not a long one. He could feel that much when he woke to the first streams of sunlight and the sound of two young voices arguing.

“But you’re a good person! How can you even consider joining the Empire?” That was Leia. The words were her mother’s, but the tone was undoubtedly Anakin’s. Obi-Wan moved to watch from the window. 

The two of them were leaving the red speeder owned by the Lars family, Leia cleaning a blaster with the edge of her cloak while Luke removed his sand-visor. It was like looking at oddly muddled ghosts from the past, the features of his lost friends muddled and exchanged between their children. There were Padmé’s wide cheeks and Anakin’s sandy hair on Luke, Anakin’s long face and Padmé’s proud eyes on Leia. It was a haunting, achingly familiar sight.

“Because out here, it’s never really mattered if it’s the Empire or the Republic,” Luke answered his sister. “If you want to get off this dustball, you have to take whatever option you can.” 

“Yes, but you’d hate it,” she insisted. “And they’d never let you desert, you’d be stuck fighting for a cause you’d hate. There have to be other ways.”

“If you find any, let me know,” Luke replied glibly before turning his attention to Obi-Wan’s small abode. Obi-Wan ducked his head behind the wall before the blue eyes could light upon him. “Ben?” Luke called out to him. “Hello?”

“What if he’s not here?” Obi-Wan heard Leia ask, accompanied by the sound of footsteps drawing nearer. “Your uncle hasn’t exactly been helpful.”

“We’ll figure something out, Leia, don’t worry.” There was the sound of a hand hitting the stone, probably Luke. “Ben Kenobi? Obi-Wan?”

Using the Force, the old Jedi pulled open his front door. “Now there’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time,” he called back. “Come in.”

“Thank goodness.” Leia stepped inside first, removing her cloak with a sigh. “I was starting to worry you weren’t real. Or that you might be dead.”

“Neither.” He gestured to the bed. “Please, sit, I’m sure you’ve been exhausted since leaving Alderaan.”

“So you _ are _ that Obi-Wan Kenobi,” she mused, clearly impressed as she took a seat.

“You never said you came from Alderaan,” Luke gawed as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “How’d you know?”

“Did my parents send word?” Leia guessed. Obi-Wan simply smiled and moved towards his kitchen.

“Would either of you like tea?”

“Not so much as I’d like answers,” Leia answered bluntly.

“I will answer your questions after you’ve both answered one of mine,” Obi-Wan turned back to look at him. “What do the two of you know of your birth parents?” They exchanged a silent glance as if debating which of them would speak first, and Luke took the initiative.

“I only know what Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru told me. They died when I was a baby. I don’t think they even knew my mother’s name, or they would have told me.”

“Leia?” Obi-Wan looked at the young princess, who raised her chin defiantly.

“I made it a point not to ask. I never needed any parents except the ones who raised me.”

“Then there is nothing? No tokens? No memories?” Obi-Wan prompted as he took a seat, and Leia hesitated, fingering the case she had brought in with her.

“I used to have dreams of a woman,” she admitted. “Her face was always fuzzy, but I knew she was beautiful and kind, and that we had some kind of connection. She always seemed very sad, she would call out my name and then disappear as I awoke. I always suspected she might have been my birth mother.”

Obi-Wan remembered the moment she was describing quite well. It was, in fact, seared into his memory. “But your parents did not tell you why you were being sent to me.”

“They said you’d explain,” she answered. “All I know is that this started after I published a paper on Senator Amidala and the Emperor took an odd sort of interest in me. He gifted me her old wardrobe and then tried to have me betrothed to Darth Vader. That’s when my parents told me I needed to leave.”

_ Betrothed to Vader. To her own father. Surely not even Sidious could be that depraved. _Or perhaps that simply meant the Organas had shielded Leia far better than he’d anticipated. “That _would_ do it,” Obi-Wan muttered, rubbing at his chin. “You admire Senator Amidala?”

“Greatly.”

“Who’s Senator Amidala?” Luke interrupted.

“She represented Naboo in the Galactic Senate for over a decade,” Leia answered. “And in the last days of the Republic, she was part of the delegation that would eventually become the Rebel Alliance, though she didn’t live to see it.”

“She was a formidable woman,” Obi-Wan agreed. “Passionate, clever, a devoted servant of democracy. And loving, though there was only one time she allowed love to outweigh duty.”

“What time was that?” asked Luke, leaning in curiously.

“When she fell in love with your father.”

“A Senator and a navigator?” The twins shared an incredulous glance, Leia clearly believing that Padmé had considered a partner of such a low station, and Luke simply stunned that such a pairing would happen.

“No, Luke. A Senator and A Jedi Knight. Equally taboo, but they did it anyway. Your uncle made it clear to me that he had no wish to see you follow the same path as your father, and so he kept the truth from you.”

“Then I was right,” Leia surmised, looking at Luke rather smugly. “Your father _ is _ that Anakin Skywalker. But I don’t understand what that has to do with me.”

“It has to do with you because Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala had two children at the end of the war,” Obi-Wan sighed. So much for being delicate. Leia had certainly inherited her father’s bluntness, and it was forcing him to respond in kind. “Twins that it was decided should not be kept together after their mother died in childbirth, for fear that they would be discovered by the Emperor.”

A guilty flush spread over Luke’s cheeks as he ducked his head, looking away from the girl he was now realizing was his sister. “The connection I felt...”

“My parents don’t want me to marry Vader because I’d be killed,” guessed Leia, ignoring her brother’s personal crisis. “Like all the other Jedi Vader and the Emperor have slaughtered since the Empire began.”

“Not exactly.” Now came the difficult part. “The end of the Clone Wars was hard on all of us, and your mother’s pregnancy did not make things easier. Your father dreamed of her death, sought a way to prevent it, and through that, the Sith Lord who was then known as the Chancellor found a weakness.”

“The Emperor’s a Sith?” Leia scoffed. “Why am I not surprised?”

“What kind of a weakness?” Luke pressed.

Obi-Wan looked down at his hands and closed his eyes, the memories of that day washing over him, playing out in his mind with such painful clarity that it was debilitating. “The Dark Side is a dangerous, addictive thing, and the power it offers is seductive. Anakin always believed that power was the only way to security, and so he let himself be drawn in. He turned his back on the Jedi. On the Republic. On your mother, even as she begged him not to...” he took a shuddering breath. “The fault was mine. I told her what he had become, how he had fallen to the Dark Side. And I stowed away in her ship when she went to find him on Mustafar, trying to prove me wrong. He nearly killed her when he saw me, and I…”

The yellow eyes blazed in his mind, the roar of the lava and the burning atmosphere would not leave him, and neither twin said a word to break him from his memories.

“We dueled. And though you could say that I won, I found that I could not bring myself to kill him. I left him on Mustafar, burning by the side of a river of lava. I believed there was no way he could have survived, but I was sorely mistaken.”

Leia stood shakily, bracing herself against the wall. “Mustafar. The air is toxic there. Prolonged exposure would...” she trailed off, breathing heavily and cupping a hand over her mouth as she pieced together the truth. _ “No.” _

“What?” Luke looked between them nervously.

“I’m afraid the being known to the galaxy as Darth Vader is all that remains of your father now.” And as Obi-Wan said it, Leia stumbled to the door, pushed it open and vomited onto the sandy ground. 

“_No,” _ she exhaled in between gags. “No, no, no. I would’ve… _ No. _”


	2. The Will of Her Father

“Oh, come on, you gotta give me more than that,” Han complained.

“You don’t like my price, go find somewhere else to sell it.” The old woman snapped, turning over the shiny golden necklace and squinting. “What are you trying to pull on me, boy?”

“You know exactly what I’m doing, but I’m not in the mood for games, so give me that, and I’ll find someone better, like you told me.” As Han reached to take the piece of jewelry back, the woman kept a firm grip on it.

“I might not get out much, but I know a royal crest when I see one. I’m not trading in stolen goods.”

“It’s not stolen!”  _ Kriff, what did that girl give me?  _ “Or at least I didn’t steal it!” The old crone had a surprisingly firm grip, and people were beginning to watch them now. Including Imperial stormtroopers. Chewie howled warningly, but it didn’t deter the soldiers, who stuck their blasters, straight in Han’s face.

“He’s a thief!” the woman shrieked, jerking the necklace out of Han’s grip and brandishing it at the leader. Han didn’t know how the guy could see anything out of that stupid helmet, but whatever he saw, it made him take not only the necklace but the entire bag Han had been holding.

“You’re coming with us.”

“I didn’t know they were stolen!” Han protested as someone slapped a pair of binders on his wrist. Oh, he was going to  _ kill _ that girl if he got out of this alive.

* * *

Leia slumped against the wall of the hovel, still breathing heavily with her stomach now empty as she stared up at Tatooine’s seemingly endless sky.

Her father. She would have married her father. Darth Vader, the scourge of the galaxy, the figure who had been the monster in her childhood nightmares, was her  _ father. _

“Are you okay?” Luke’s voice came from the door as he stepped outside, a box in his hands.

“Do I  _ look _ okay?” she asked, wiping at her face with her sleeve. How was it  _ she _ was the one who’d grown up a Princess, and yet, Luke was the one who was so painfully naïve? “How can  _ you _ be so calm?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted slowly. “I mean, I guess a lot more things make sense to me, now that I know who my parents were.”

“ _ Are _ ,” she corrected bitterly. “Or did you miss the part where our birth father is alive and a servant of the Emperor?”

“No, I got that,” Luke conceded, sitting beside her on a relatively clean patch of sand as he tapped his fingers on the box. “But he wasn’t always that way. I mean, our mother wouldn’t have loved him if he’d always been like that. You said it yourself, he was a hero.”

“ _ Was. _ ”

He sighed. “Leia.”

“What?” she asked sharply. “You don’t understand, a week ago, I didn’t know any of this, and I was  _ happy.  _ And I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back home, or even if I  _ can _ go back, because if I do, the Emperor is probably going to make me  _ marry my father. _ ”

Luke opened the box, showing her two long silver cylinders. “That’s why your parents sent you here. They didn’t just want Ben to tell you this, they wanted him to train you. Or, us, I guess.” He mumbled something under his breath about his uncle.

“I don’t know if I want to learn,” she muttered, even as the cylinders gleamed in the sunlight. She already knew what they were, even if he hadn’t said it. Lightsabers. She had even pretended to have one when she was five before her father had taken the stick serving as her hilt away from her.  _ Stupid little girl…  _ “I want to go back to the way things were before. I have no interest in being a Jedi.”

“Okay, then do it to spend some time with your big brother,” Luke said, giving her a broad smile that it was really hard for Leia to resist. “Come on, I don’t want to do this alone.”

“What makes you so sure you’re the older sibling?” she challenged, smiling in spite of herself.

“I felt it in the Force,” he said so gravely that she wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. It made her laugh regardless.

“Well, you already have sounding like a Jedi down,” she sighed. “Alright, I’ll do it. If only so I can put this,” here she paused to lift the smaller of the lightsabers, angling it away from her as she carefully pressed the red switch and a green beam of light sprang to life, humming with energy, “through the heart of the Emperor myself.”

* * *

“You are certain this was all of it?”

“Yes, Lord Vader,” the trooper confirmed. “Searched his whole vessel just to be sure.”

Vader turned the necklace over in his gloved hands. Even through the red filtered lenses, he knew the stacked bands of gold. He remembered the first time he’d seen it.

_ Ani? My goodness, you’ve grown. _

_ So have you, grown more beautiful... for a senator, I mean. _

That little brat had thrown away Padmé’s belongings, given them to a no-account scoundrel like they were garbage. But why? Surely the Organas had the means to stash her somewhere safely without giving away such precious things. “Bring the smuggler to the interrogation room. Leave the Wookiee in the holding cell for now.”

“Do you want a torture droid sent there too, sir?”

“Have it on standby.”

“Yessir. Right away, sir.” As the trooper left, Vader lingered, looking over the gowns and jewels that had been confiscated from ‘Han Solo,’ as he called himself. There was the silver headpiece Padmé had worn the day they visited Tatooine, the violet gown she’d donned for their mission to Cato Neimoidia, the cloak and two-piece blue dress from their visit with her family. So many memories of happier times he’d lost forever, along with Padmé herself.

There was something larger at work here, and while he could have gone to interrogate Organa, it was entirely possible Solo had the answers. “Have these taken to my quarters,” he ordered the serving droid waiting by the door. “And handle them with care, or I will see you melted down for scrap.”

“Yes, Lord Vader.” As the droid moved forward, Vader swept out of the room, down the long stretch of corridors that led to the interrogation block. Solo lay strapped in place, looking unusually defiant until Vader entered the room. There was an immediate shift in the younger man’s emotions, panic, denial, and dread swirling around him.

“Look, I’ve been telling the truth, I didn’t steal—”

“I know you didn’t,” Vader said coldly, clenching his fist. Solo immediately started gasping for air. “I know you got those items from Leia Organa, what I want to know is  _ why.”  _ Solo gasped and gagged as Vader pushed into his mind, searching for the Princess.

What he saw was a sand-swept landscape he knew all too well, confirmed by the echo of the smuggler’s memories. Mos Eisley. Tatooine. He’d hoped never to lay eyes on that Force-forsaken place ever again. He saw the diminutive form of the Princess approaching a young man with sandy blond hair, the strains of their conversation slowly drifting towards Solo.

_ “Do you happen to know where I might be able to find Obi-Wan Kenobi?”  _ Kenobi! Alive and hiding on Tatooine of all places! But why would the Princess have been sent to him?

_ “I know a Ben Kenobi, but not an Obi-Wan—” _ And the boy, why did he feel as if he knew the boy? There was something achingly familiar about him.

_ “Luke. Come on, we need to finish.”  _ It had been well over twenty years, and the man had been aged by both time and the elements, but Vader still knew that face. Owen Lars. The memory began to falter as Vader’s fist tightened, and he realized he was still choking Solo. Reluctantly, he released his grip and pressed deeper into the memory, focusing on the boy.

_ Luke. _

He saw no familial resemblance between the boy and Owen Lars. Perhaps he took after his…

_ Mother _ .

There. The cheekbones. The eyebrows. The nose.

But it wasn’t possible. She had died. The baby had died with her. He’d seen the funeral. And yet...

_ Kenobi. _ It wasn’t enough to turn Padmé against him, but to steal a child,  _ Vader’s child.  _ Oh, he would go to Tatooine and make his former Master pay for this.

In the memory, the Princess turned back to look at Solo, and for the first time, Vader saw her eyes clearly, eyes that were just as familiar to him as the features he had recognized in the face of Luke.

What had Sidious said?  _ “In many ways, she positions herself as the successor to the late Senator Amidala.”  _ And just like that, it all fell into place. The old fool hadn’t known how right he was. He would pay for his lies, just as Kenobi and Organa would pay for stealing  _ his  _ children _ . _

“Will...” Solo coughed, reminding Vader that he was not alone. “Will you let me go now, sir?”

Vader looked at him slowly, considering the request and everything he had seen inside the smuggler’s mind. And a plan began to take form.

“Not just yet, Solo. Not just yet.”

* * *

“Going somewhere?”

“I have a funny feeling about Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru,” Luke answered, buckling his helmet as he approached the speeder. “And since it’s been a week, Ben said I could go check on them.”

Leia tried not to scowl, she could guess exactly why Luke was being given a day off and she wasn’t. One of them had taken a lot more easily to the whole business of being trained in the Force, and it wasn’t her. “Good luck with that,” she muttered.

“I’ll bring back supplies too,” he promised.

“Luke, I’m fine,” Leia insisted. “Stop trying to be the big brother.”

“But I  _ am _ the big brother, Ben confirmed it,” he reminded her, shamelessly grinning as he hopped in the speeder. “I’ll try to be back tonight.”

“I’m sure you will.” She stared at the cluster of rocks in front of her, screwing up her face in frustration.  _ Lift _ ,  _ damn you _ , she ordered it mentally. None of them moved.

“Leia,” the now annoyingly familiar voice of Obi-Wan came from the hut. “Will you come inside, please?”

“I’d rather not.”

“Please,” Obi-Wan repeated grimly. Leia huffed and turned to face the window where she saw him looking out at her.

“Why? So I can just fail again at this whole thing? The longer we spend on this, the more I’m convinced you’re wrong. I’m not Jedi material.”

“No, you’re not.” His agreement made her blink in shock, she had not expected him to concede so easily. “In the ways of the Order, both you and Luke are entirely too old to ever become proper Jedi. And I realize now that I’ve been going about this in the wrong way. Especially for you. Now, will you please come inside so we can have a conversation like civilized people?”

It was hard to say no when he made it sound so reasonable. “I suppose,” she sighed, shuffling inside and sinking down on the bed while he poured two cups of blue milk. “So, what are we talking about?”

“You,” Obi-Wan answered, taking a long sip. “You’ve been doing very well with saber training. In that respect, I think you may outstrip Luke. But he’s made more progress in the side of the Force that,” here he paused, mulling over his words, “that requires inward reflection.”

“I suppose you’re about to tell me why,” Leia said dryly.

He did that thing Leia had come to hate where he rubbed his beard, clearly thinking about something that he didn’t know how to phrase to her, as if he were afraid of offending her. “Will you listen to what I have to say without becoming upset?”

“Why would I get upset?” Her eyes narrowed.

“I am not blind, Leia, I know that the subject of your father is not one you enjoy discussing.”

“My  _ father _ is Bail Organa,” she said immediately.

“I am not disputing that.”

“Then stop referring to Vader as my father. I thought you were going to tell me why I’m having problems with using the Force. Or don’t you actually know?”

“I’m curious as to what you think the reason might be.”

“Luke’s stronger than I am,” she said bluntly. “Seems simple enough.”

He chuckled slightly. “I suppose it is possible, but that is not my experience with twins who are strong in the Force.”

“Then maybe  _ you  _ should enlighten me,” retorted Leia. “Why do you think I can’t do it?”

“I believe you are holding yourself back—”

“But I  _ am  _ trying,” she interrupted. “I  _ want _ to know how to use the Force, I want to be able to stop Vader and the Emperor—”

“And therein lies the problem. You are not resisting the Force. You’re resisting yourself.” She fought the urge to dump her cup of blue milk over his head by swallowing all of its contents. “Leia, if you are to make any progress, you need to accept the truth of your birth and then let it go.”

“You do realize those things you just said are contradictory,” she pointed out, slamming her cup down.

“They’re not,” Obi-Wan said calmly. “But they are difficult to reconcile.”

“Impossible,” she corrected. “Absolutely impossible. How can I accept something and let it go at the same time?” He rubbed his beard again. “Oh, just spit it out, I’m not a child!” she fumed.

“You are very like Anakin,” he said finally, and Leia clenched her teeth, taking a low hissing breath. “You should not see that as a weakness, Leia. For a long time, he was a good man. A good friend.”

“And now he’s a monster.”

“Do you think that makes you a monster?” She didn’t answer. She didn’t even look at Obi-Wan. He’d cornered her there, and they both knew it. “You are Anakin’s daughter. But you are also Padmé’s, and Bail’s, and Breha’s. They have each given you an inheritance, but it is your choice on how you will use it,” he continued. “ _ That _ is how you let it go, Leia. Acknowledging your birth parents and understanding that they do not define you.”

She tried to think of something,  _ anything  _ to say in return. He’d been entirely too reasonable, too logical in presenting his argument. “But I don't  _ want _ to. If I accept that Vader used to be a good person, if I think of him as at all human, it’s only going to make it that much harder to kill him.”

“You were not sent to me to become an assassin, Leia, you were sent here to learn how to protect yourself. I have no doubt that your parents would have my head if I let you charge headfirst into battle with the two most dangerous beings in the galaxy.”

“But they need to die!” she protested furiously. “And I might be the only person who can manage it! Luke doesn’t understand just how  _ bad _ it is out there, how much of a monster Vader is. He could never do what needs to be done.”

“Be careful that you do not conflate vengeance with justice, little one,” Obi-Wan warned. “This goes against what we were just talking about.”

“Vengeance and justice are not always mutually exclusive,” Leia countered. “For many people, seeing Vader and Palpatine brought to justice  _ would _ be vengeance.”

“And for you?” Obi-Wan prompted. Leia pursed her lips and looked away. No matter what answer she gave, he wasn’t going to like it.

_ I want them gone because they destroyed the Republic my mother and the people who raised me loved. I want them gone because they’ve hurt so many people. I want them gone before the world can know I’m Vader’s daughter. I want to kill him so I can forget there’s any kind of connection between the two of us. _

“You’re entitled to whatever feelings you might have, Leia. But not when you are wielding the Force. Not unless you want to follow the same path Vader did.”

Leia flinched at that, feeling tempted to vomit the way she had when she first learned of her paternity. “I will  _ never _ be like him,” she swore through clenched teeth.

“And that is why you need to let go,” Obi-Wan said softly. “The pain you feel is something the Dark Side will feed on. If you are not careful, it will consume you.”

Leia stared at the cups in front of her. “Then why train me at all, if you might fail just like you did with Vader?”

“I am trying very hard not to fail you or your brother, Leia. But there is only so much I can do if you are not willing to work with me. Will you try? Please?”

She nodded slowly, closing her eyes and trying to do what he’d told her. 

_ Accept it. Vader is my father. Let it go, it doesn’t matter. He will never be my father in any way that matters, so let it go. _

“There now, you see?” Leia opened her eyes at Obi-Wan’s bemused words to see the cup floating in front of her. And then it promptly dropped back onto the table, making the old man sigh. “Well, it’s a start.”

“Is this how you taught  _ Anakin _ ?” she shot back in annoyance, and her words found their mark. He looked away in that haunted fashion of his, and Leia knew she ought to feel bad, that she ought to apologize, but she didn’t want to just yet. They sat in silence, with him refusing to meet her gaze, and her testing the limits of her abilities, now that she had a basic handle on what she was doing. 

Then she felt it. A wave of pure anguish and sorrow that was clearly coming from… “Luke.” She shot up from her seat, rushing out to meet her brother with Obi-Wan close behind. 

Luke was not driving the speeder but sitting shell-shocked in the passenger seat while the driver, a familiar-looking Wookiee, pulled to a stop in front of the hut and let out a yowl, nudging Luke gently. 

“Chewbacca, what are you doing here?” Leia asked as she moved closer to her twin. “Luke, what happened?”

“Uncle Owen,” he whispered hollowly. “Aunt Beru…”

Chewbacca roared and Leia wished she knew Shyriiwook, or at least that she had C-3PO to translate. 

“Oh, dear,” Obi-Wan said grimly. 

“Will someone explain what is going on?” Leia demanded, helping Luke out of the speeder. He was trembling under her touch. 

“It seems the young man who escorted you here was arrested trying to sell the wares you gave him,” Obi-Wan translated. “And he is still in custody. The Imperial soldiers who were holding Chewbacca sent a small group to the Lars homestead.”

“They killed them,” Luke managed. “That’s what I found when I got there, it’s all my fault.”

“No, it’s not,” Leia hurried to reassure him. There were plenty of people whose fault it was, but Luke was not one of them. “It’s not your fault, Luke, not by a long shot. This is just what the Empire does.”

Chewbacca held out a commlink to Obi-Wan, who took it and gestured for them to follow him inside. Leia had to help Luke in, as he didn’t seem able to move on his own. She held onto him tightly, guiding him to sit down as Obi-Wan retrieved an old holo-player and inserted the chip. The sound of the Imperial Anthem filled the hut and Leia cringed as the black silhouette of Vader came into focus, quieting the hubbub of what she assumed were HoloNet reporters.

“I will omit the usual formalities and tell you briefly that His Majesty, the Emperor has passed.” There was a low gasp in the recording and Leia’s eyes widened as she suppressed a surge of annoyance.  _ She’d _ wanted to be the one to make that announcement someday. Vader continued on, “it is difficult to accept. This Empire was built upon a foundation and a vision he held, but he has entrusted both to me before his death, and I assure you all I intend to see them through.”

“Force help us,” Obi-Wan exhaled. “He did it.”

“Of course he did,” Leia said bluntly as she rubbed circles on Luke’s back. “Watch, he’ll probably say that one of Palpatine’s other cronies did it, just to make sure no one tries to grab power for him.”

“...Investigation has determined that it was our own Grand Vizier, Mas Amedda, coordinating with the Rebel Alliance, to bring about this abhorrent tragedy…” Vader continued, right on cue.

Chewbacca let out a low growl, looking to Obi-Wan for translation. “He says this happened three days ago,” the old Jedi translated. “And that the stormtroopers who brought him here departed after the scouts returned, leaving him with the message. He’s been trying to find you since then.”

Leia frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense, there’s no assurance that it would achieve their goals. It relies too much on luck.”

Chewbacca’s moan was almost understandable, it sounded like ‘Han.’ Leia wanted to tell the Wookiee that his friend was probably already dead, but that wasn’t going to help any of them.

“I’m afraid we have greater problems at hand,” Obi-Wan said grimly. “If everything Chewbacca is saying is true, and my suspicions are correct, then we need to leave and get the two of you to Dagobah as quickly as possible.”

“Dagobah?” Luke echoed hazily. “Why?”

“Because if Vader is still looking for Leia even after the Emperor’s death, it is more than likely he knows the truth of her birth, and it won’t be long before he learns of Luke too.”

“You’re certain?” Leia prompted nervously.

“Vader may be many things, but if there is one thing I know, it is that he would not betray Padmé’s memory by taking a wife,” Obi-Wan answered grimly.

“You didn’t answer. Why Dagobah?” Luke prompted again, his voice soft and small.

“Because Dagobah is where the last Grand Master of the Jedi Order lives. And we will need all the help we can get in protecting the two of you.”

Chewbacca yowled in protest, jabbing at the holo-recording that was still playing, and Leia gasped as she realized that Vader was no longer alone. Her parents and Han Solo now stood behind the black-cloaked Sith, and all three of them looked  _ awful. _ There was a hollowness in her father’s cheeks, a haunted look in her mother’s eyes, a shift in the way Solo stood that told her he was in physical pain. “Wait,” she said, winding the recording back a moment, to the frame where her parents first appeared. 

“As you know, Alderaan has been under increased Imperial protection since the abduction of Princess Leia Organa several weeks ago,” Vader pronounced, and Leia’s fist clenched. He had her home blockaded. “Her parents are being hosted here for their safety while we determine whether or not Amedda’s assassination of the Emperor is related to their daughter’s kidnapping. In three months’ time, after we have properly mourned the loss of the Emperor, they will be guests of honor at the festivities for my coronation, along with Captain Han Solo, the last person known to have seen the Princess alive and attempted to rescue her.”

Leia stopped the feed, trying to think. She hated to admit it, but he was surprisingly good at lying, or at least presenting propaganda that someone else had prepared for him. And this was the Imperial News Bureau, none of them would question Vader.

“Leia,” Obi-Wan’s voice came warningly as if he already knew what she wanted to do. He probably did. “Don’t.”

“I  _ know _ , _ ”  _ she cut him off with a scowl. “Of course I know that it’s a trap, I’m not a fool. But I’m not heartless either, I can’t leave other people to suffer because of me. Especially not my parents.”

“You’re not ready. You would be playing into the hands of someone infinitely stronger and better trained in the Force.”

“So we go to Dagobah,” Luke suggested softly. “We go there for a little while and let the Grand Master train us, then we go save them.”

“Luke,” Obi-Wan’s tone softened as he looked over. “You’re overwhelmed, don’t push yourself—”

“Leia’s my sister,” Luke cut him off. “And I love her, and it’s not her fault that Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru are dead, and she needs help saving her parents, so I want to help her.”

“You could both end up in Vader’s custody.” Obi-Wan reminded them. “I cannot allow that, I owe it to your mother to keep both of you safe.”

“You don’t get to assuage your guilt by invoking our mother’s name,” Leia shot back. “Do you really think she’d be able to stand idly by while something like this happened? You forget I grew up idolizing her, I know exactly what kind of person she was.”

“Leia—”

“You can come with us or not, but we’re doing Luke’s plan,” she interrupted him defiantly. “Chewbacca, did they leave you with your, ah, ship?” The memory of the  _ Millennium Falcon  _ was still not a pleasant one, but it would have to do, judging by the way Chewbacca nodded as he howled. “Well, then we’ll have to do a thorough sweep of it before we go. The last thing we need is the Empire tracking us while I’m reaching out to my friends in the Alliance.”

* * *

There were a thousand things Vader could have been doing. Overseeing the preparations for the funeral, or the coronation. Matters of state. Monitoring Alderaan, just in case Leia was foolish enough to return there. But he was currently dealing with the aftermath of disciplining the idiot stormtroopers that had prematurely executed Owen Lars and his wife. Vader would have seen it done eventually, but this threw things off balance. It was  _ not _ the plan. Thank the Force he’d not sent them to find Kenobi and the twins, that could have ended with his children slaughtered as well.

“Get rid of this,” he snarled, storming past Piett as he headed towards the apartments currently housing Bail and Breha Organa. For the sake of appearances, he had to hold them in diplomatic quarters, even though he would prefer to have them both rotting in the most vermin-infested cell possible. His lieutenant nodded, clearly trying to suppress a sigh, as if he weren’t fully aware of Vader’s ability to know exactly what he was thinking.

The satisfaction from dispatching his master had been with him only a few days before it proved fleeting. The knowledge that his children,  _ Padmé’s children _ , were out in the galaxy somewhere, and not by his side, consumed him. He needed them, he’d been denied for nearly twenty years, deceived by everyone. Kenobi, Organa, even Sidious for the lie that Vader had killed Padmé all those years ago. So far, only one of them had paid, and that had not lasted nearly long enough. He savored the memory of the horror in his Master’s eyes as the saber finally came down, the paralyzing fear and defeat that had radiated from him as Vader finally surpassed him.

Reaching his destination, he strode into the Organas’ chambers, looming over both of them as they sat silently, clearly trying to ignore his presence. “If you make this difficult, you will only bring more suffering upon yourselves,” he warned coldly. “I may not be able to kill you, but I can make you suffer. I can make your people suffer. You know I can. So it’s really in your best interests to tell me what I want to know.  _ Where is she? _ ”

“Safe,” Bail Organa answered simply. “Your trap won’t work. She isn’t that—”

“Reckless?” Vader interrupted, stalking towards the former Senator. “Passionate? Stubborn?  _ Loving? _ If she is anything like her parents, her  _ true _ parents— and I know she is— she  _ will _ come. _ ” _

“He’s telling the truth!” Queen Breha insisted desperately. “We don’t know where she is now, we haven’t had contact with her since she left!” Vader didn’t need the Force to know that she was sincere, but he didn’t believe for one moment that her husband wasn’t hiding more information.

“Who else knew?” he pressed. “ _ Who else? _ ”

Organa’s jaw clenched. “No one I’d be able to find.”

“Not good enough.” Vader put every ounce of power he had into pressing against Organa’s considerable mental blocks. “Tell me who else. I may need you alive, but there’s no reason for me to leave your mind intact. I’m all too happy to tear it apart for the answers I need.”

“Please, don’t,” Breha pleaded. “Please, he’s telling the truth, we don’t know where she is, or if she even made it—”

“Oh, but I do.” Vader flung her husband across the room, taking pleasure in the sound Organa’s body made when it hit the wall. Stalking towards Breha, Vader tilted his head. “I know she made it to Tatooine to find Kenobi. And I know about  _ Luke. _ ” The Queen flinched. “I am deeply curious as to how you could possibly justify stealing one of my children for yourselves while condemning the other to a life in a place like Tatooine. And yet you think of  _ me _ as the monster?”

“To protect them,” Bail rasped. “From the Emperor. From  _ you. _ None of us wanted to do it—” he stopped short, but Vader caught just the faintest glimpse of a familiar face he’d hoped never to see again in the former senator’s memories.  _ Yoda. _

_ That slippery little wretch.  _ He was not surprised by the old Grand Master’s survival, but he was certainly enraged. If not for Yoda’s banalities and blindness and meddling, Vader would have more than his children at this moment, he would have his wife still at his side.

If Yoda still lived, Kenobi had surely taken the twins to him, and wherever that was, they would surely be well hidden. But Leia… she would come. And if it was not because she was Padmé’s daughter, then it would be because she was  _ his  _ daughter.

He could never pass up an opportunity for bloody vengeance either.


	3. Three Nights, Three Gowns

“Hesitant, you are.” Luke looked up to see Master Yoda sitting on one of the big tree roots. Luke pressed his lips together, letting his gaze move over to where his sister was loading up the  _ Falcon  _ with Chewbacca. 

The last three months had been a completely different experience from the first nineteen years of his life. They’d been a near-constant stream of training beyond what they’d done in the week with Ben. Yoda had pushed them every day, to the point where they were collapsing into bed every night, and Luke couldn’t say he was sorry that part of things had come to an end, no matter how nervous he was about what came next.

“I’m going with her,” he answered. “Because I still think I might be able to stop her from doing things she’ll end up regretting.”

“True, this is,” Yoda nodded. “Too much like your father, Leia is. Too much rage and pain.”

“Leia’s a good person,” Luke insisted. “She would never be—”

“Luke!” His sister’s voice cut him off before he could finish that thought. “Come on, we have to go if we’re going to meet our contact in time!” she scolded, hanging off the ramp of the  _ Falcon. _

“I’m coming!” he called before looking back at Yoda one last time. “Thank you, Master Yoda, for all your help.” From across the swampy clearing, he let his gaze meet Ben’s. His father’s old teacher had a severe look on his face, thrown into shadows by the hood of his cloak. Despite Luke’s best efforts, he’d refused to join them, and had tried to dissuade them from following through on Leia’s plans at every turn. “Ben.”

“You are not ready,” he warned.

“We’ll never have another chance,” Leia huffed, storming over and grabbing Luke by the elbow. “Vader needs to be stopped now. This has gone on long enough. You know it has.”

“Hmmph.” Yoda knocked his cane against the roots.”Regret this, you will.”

“Not as much as we would if we didn’t do this,” she countered firmly as she tugged Luke towards the ship. “Goodbye, Yoda. I did not enjoy our time together.”

“Leia, you could be a little more diplomatic. Or just polite,” Luke scolded. “I thought you were a princess.”

“I  _ am _ a Princess, and  _ he’s _ the single most aggravating creature in the galaxy,” his sister retorted, moving behind him to push him all the way up the ramp.

“You could’ve allowed for a proper goodbye,” Luke protested as the Falcon doors began to seal.

“We’ll see them again,” she predicted. “So we don’t need to be all teary about it. Besides, aren’t you interested in meeting one of our cousins?”

That got Luke’s attention. “Cousins?”

Leia smiled and guided him to the cockpit as the ship’s engines buzzed to life and they began to lift off. “Pooja Naberrie is the younger daughter of our mother’s sister. She and I served together in the Senate, and she’s our contact for getting into Vader’s grotesque celebrations.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Luke asked, taking the copilot’s seat. “Wouldn’t we be putting her at risk?”

“Pooja has been involved with the Rebellion for years, just as I have. She knows the risks. She’s willing to do whatever she can to help our cause.”

_ Our cause. _ He was part of a cause. He certainly hadn’t thought of himself that way when all this started, but it made sense that Leia would see it that way. She seemed to see everything in terms of the Alliance and the Empire. Allies and enemies. Luke bit his lip as he looked at his sister, wondering if she could feel the fact that he was worried for her.

He didn’t think Master Yoda was right in believing she could fall to the Dark Side. But he was starting to think that she might get herself killed. 

_ Well, what are big brothers for if not protecting their baby sisters? _

* * *

“You summoned me,  _ your Majesty? _ ”

“Your mocking is noted,” Vader scoffed, turning to face Mara Jade. The red-haired young woman stood before him in the black leather uniform of the Emperor’s Hand, a uniform only she wore now. She’d been the only one of them with enough brains to see that loyalty to Sidious after his death was unwarranted. And the only one with the skills to outlive her peers once Vader set them loose on each other. “Perhaps I won’t make you my offer.” He felt her interest through the Force even before she spoke.

“What offer?”

“Assuming all goes according to plan, there will be two guests at this evening’s festivities that are not expected to be there. Our missing Princess, naturally, and a young man. About the same age as the Princess, slightly older than you. Blond and blue-eyed. Tanned.”

“I assume you’re not going to tell me I get to kill them,” the young woman asked sullenly, her arms folded across her chest as she looked up at him.

“You are correct, neither of them is to be harmed,” he warned. “Doing so will  _ greatly _ shorten your life expectancy. The Princess will come to me. Your task is to secure the boy. Safely.”

“I fail to see how that’s an offer. What do I get in return for doing this?”

“If you continue to disrespect me, nothing,” he growled.  _ Petulant child.  _ He could only hope the twins would not prove quite so willful. “But if you do as you are told and succeed, you will find me in an exceptionally generous mood.”

“Generous enough to make me your Apprentice?” she asked bluntly, and he stiffened. “Have I not proved my dedication? You’re the Master now, that means you need an Apprentice. Why not me?”

He stared straight at her, keeping his emotions carefully shielded as he considered the young woman. There was something about her, he could not place what it was, but she was somehow crucial to the future of his children. Which meant he would keep her alive for the time being. “I will consider it. But only after I have the boy  _ and _ the Princess.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, then finally bowed from the waist. “I understand. Will there be anything else, your Majesty?”

“No. You may go. Prepare for tonight. Do not disappoint me.”

“Of course, sire.” He briefly felt her toy with the idea of killing him as she began to exit, forgetting that he was infinitely stronger than her shields. He lifted her into the air by her throat, letting her linger and gasp while he felt her panic through the Force.

“You serve me now, Mara Jade,” he reminded her coldly. “You exist solely through my goodwill. Remember that.” He released his grip, watching her drop and cough as she struggled to regain her breath. “Now go.”

She glared at him, getting to her feet and slinking out of the room while he turned his gaze to the skyline of Imperial Center, watching the ships arrive.

_ Soon, Padmé. Soon I’ll have them back. I only wish… _

Better not to think of that. He’d had months to scour the forbidden holocrons that both the Jedi and Sidious had kept from him for so many years, and all of them had proved useless. She was lost to him forever.

The twins were all he had now, and he would not let them slip through his fingers.

* * *

“I must say, cousin,” Pooja mused as she inspected Luke, “you cut quite a dashing figure. Your father did too.” Luke nodded politely, unsure of what to say. It felt awkward to be keeping half the truth from Pooja, but Leia had insisted it was in their best interest not to let anyone else know of the connection between Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker. “It’s a very good color on you,” his cousin continued, turning to look at her own reflection in the mirror, and adjusting the capelet of her black dress.

“I’ve never worn something this dark before,” he admitted, tugging on the fine velvet of the coat that had been made specifically for him. “On Tatooine, we generally wear lighter colors. And fabrics. Two suns mean twice as much heat and light, it gets hot fast.”

“It sounds awful,” Pooja frowned. “Well, when all this is done, you should definitely come to Naboo. You can enjoy a more temperate climate, meet our grandparents, learn more about Aunt Padmé—”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Leia emerged from behind her changing screen and Luke’s eyes widened at the dress his sister had chosen. They were all wearing black since this first night of festivities was allegedly meant to be a memorial of the previous emperor, but he and Pooja were both dressed relatively modestly.

Leia, on the other hand, had chosen one of their mother’s dresses, one with a tight leather bodice that pushed up her breasts and a skirt of black lace laid over white silk that flared out below her knees. There was also a thick black choker with glittering onyx beads that went down to the floor and reminded Luke of the chains he used to see around the necks of slave girls in pin-up posters on cantina walls, and fingerless gloves that went up to the middle of her biceps and matched the bodice. Her hair was plaited down her back with two silver bands running across her forehead. The overall effect was mesmerizing and Luke had to remind himself that she was still his sister before he looked for  _ too _ long.

“Force, you look like Aunt Padmé,” Pooja remarked, raising an eyebrow at Luke as he coughed. “But I think I remember a wrap that goes with it? Just to make it a bit less, er, provocative? Or is the plan that you haven’t shared yet for you to rely on your feminine wiles?”

“Hardly.” Leia held up a shawl of shimmering black-green feathers. “But this is the only gown of our mother’s that fits this evening’s theme.”

“I could have gotten something for you,” Pooja pointed out.

“No, it has to be something that belonged to our mother,” Leia said firmly. “The cloaking we’re using won’t extend to Vader, he’s too strong. But I want him to see. I want him to remember what he did to her.”

Pooja pursed her lips but nodded. “If you’re sure. I have my reservations about this entire course of action, it feels risky not knowing everything you’re planning.”

“You know why I didn’t tell you.” Leia wrapped the feathered cloak around her shoulders and clasped it shut. “The less you know, the safer you are. Once you get us inside, your only job is to make sure we can leave when we need to.”

“You are  _ so _ like Aunt Padmé,” Pooja muttered in a way that made Luke think it wasn’t quite a compliment.

“Are we ready?” Leia asked, ignoring the maybe-insult. Pooja and Luke exchanged a brief glance before nodding slowly. “Then let’s move out.”

As they headed to the hangar where Pooja’s glittering silver Nubian waited, Luke leaned in so he could whisper to her. “What did you mean when you said she was like,” he paused and swallowed, “like our mother?”

“Aunt Padmé had this habit of taking the weight of the galaxy on her shoulders,” Pooja explained softly. “She never wanted to let someone else do something dangerous when she believed she could do it herself. I’m not surprised that the Organas raised Leia to be like her, Alderaan and Naboo have similar ideals when it comes to political responsibility.”

“But you say it like it’s a bad thing.”

“For a long time, we thought it was the real reason she died. Her name was on the Petition of the 2,000, she’d marked herself as an enemy of the Empire. We thought she’d been murdered by the Emperor because she did something brave, noble, and reckless.”

“That  _ does  _ sound like Leia,” Luke agreed with a slight smile. Then he felt guilty for bringing up what was probably a painful memory to his cousin. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Pooja said firmly. “It’s awful to know she died so young, but it’s a comfort to know she lives through the two of you. And if we can do this, I think her spirit will be at peace.”

“You really think so?”

“I have to,” she admitted, her voice growing softer. “You and Leia, you’re the only hope we have. I have to believe this will work.”

* * *

As they approached the head of the line leading into the Imperial Palace, Leia fought the urge to rub one leg against the other. Her lightsaber hilt was currently strapped to her calf, and the last thing she wanted was to accidentally ignite it. Pockets, it seemed, had not been a priority in making this dress. She tried not to look enviously at where she knew Luke had his own saber stashed in the hidden pocket of his coat.

“They’re scanning guests for weapons,” Pooja said, glancing at the stormtroopers guarding the entrance and brandishing several wicked-looking devices.

“I can handle it,” Leia said firmly, stepping forward with a clear air of confidence. “Just follow my lead.” Pooja nodded but gripped Luke’s arm rather tightly as they stepped forward. Fixing her gaze on the guards, Leia set her jaw and poured every ounce of her limited Force training into what she said next. “We’re clear. You’ve checked us and there is nothing unusual to report.”

“You’re going to wish us a pleasant evening,” Luke added, lending his own strength to Leia’s suggestion. For one agonizingly long moment, there was a silence that felt deadly. Then the trooper nodded.

“You’re cleared, nothing unusual to report. Have a pleasant evening, milord, miladies.”

“Milord,” Luke repeated as they passed by the troopers and into the palace. “Lord Luke. Not as fancy as  _ Princess  _ or anything, but I kind of like it.”

“Not the priority,” Leia reminded her brother tartly.

“You two grew up in this world, but tonight is my first experience, let me have this one moment,” he complained.

“This is not  _ my _ world. Alderaan is my world,” corrected Leia as they entered the massive hall that doubled as the throne room. “This is the Jedi Temple, desecrated for two decades by the horrible things Vader and Sidious have done.”

“Perhaps don’t be  _ quite _ so loud about your opinions when we’re in the belly of the beast,” Pooja interjected diplomatically as she looked around. “Ah, there’s your captain.”

“He’s not  _ mine,” _ Leia huffed, her gaze following her cousin’s finger to where Han Solo stood. He looked about as uncomfortable as she felt, dressed in what looked like the formal whites of the Imperial Navy. She wasn’t sure whether to pity him or the person who’d had the unenviable task of forcing him into such attire. “But now that we’ve seen him, split up. Pooja, you’ll be considering our exits. Luke, you’ll cover for me as I get closer and try to get him to come with us.”

“Won’t they be expecting  _ you _ to go after him?”

“Maybe if anyone in this room actually had the strength of mind to recognize me,” Leia countered haughtily. “But Sidious either murdered everyone like that or they saw sense and joined the Alliance. All that’s left on this Force-forsaken planet are brainless sycophants and flatterers.”

“Alright, alright,” Luke huffed, and Leia could feel his annoyance. “You’ve made your point. I’m going.”

“Be careful, cousin,” Pooja said softly as she began to move away. Leia nodded grimly before turning her focus back to Han. Stepping lightly, she began to weave her way through the crowd until she was standing right behind him and reaching up to tap him on the shoulder. When he glanced back at her, she saw his eyes widen, and his mouth start to open.

Everything she’d been planning to do and say flew out of her mind in an instant. All she knew was that she couldn’t let him say a single word. Panicking, she pulled him down to her height and brought their lips crashing together. It was something she’d learned in her early education about espionage, that it was better to be in a pair and act like a couple because public displays of affection made people look away in discomfort.

“What the hell?” Han hissed as she drew back.

“Shut up and listen to me.” She placed her left hand on his shoulder as the musicians began to play. “Put your hand on my waist and move with the music. I’m here to get you out.” She gripped his left hand in her right and looked at him pointedly.

“I repeat,  _ what the hell, princess?”  _ He complied with her instructions, but his grip on her waist and hand was overly aggressive, and Leia resisted the urge to step on his toes in retaliation. “Yeah, I know who you are now. Thanks a lot for not filling me in.”

“It could be a lot worse, Solo, at least you’re still alive,” she shot back. “And that’s why I’m here.”

“But why? I’d have thought your parents would be the priority.”

“Dip me.”

“What?”

“Dip. Me,” she repeated. “Lower me down, then pull me back up. We’re supposed to be dancing.” He huffed and performed the move so quickly that Leia worried her circlet was going to fly off her head. “That was excessive.”

“I’m not a dancer,” he retorted. “And you still owe me an explanation.”

“Do what I tell you, and I’ll get you out of here and compensate you for your trouble. In credits this time.”

“Because giving me some dead Senator’s stolen clothes won’t work twice?”

“They were not stolen. They were a gift from the Emperor.” The acknowledgment tasted bitter in her mouth.

“Because that makes it so much better.”

“Do you want to be rescued or not, Solo?”

“Technically, your worshipfulness, the fact that you’re here means I don’t need rescuing. You  _ do _ know you walked into a trap?”

“A trap that’s going to fail, and you’re a bigger idiot than I thought if you actually believe Vader’s going to just let you go now that I’m here.” She forced him to spin her under his arm. “The plan is to sneak you out with my cousin while Luke and I cover you—”

“ _ Luke _ ? That little kid from Tatooine? You’re crazy.”

“He’s not,” Leia stopped and shook her head. “Look, Chewbacca is already prepped and waiting with your ship and your payment, and I promised  _ him _ that we’d get you out. He trusts me. Can’t that be good enough for you?”

Han’s features softened just a little bit as he heard his copilot’s name. “Chewie’s alright?”

“Yes, he is,” Leia nodded. “Move us towards the doors, and we’ll be intercepted by my cousin. She’ll feign illness, you’ll take her outside for fresh air. Luke and I will be right behind you.”

She trailed off as a chill ran up her spine. The music they’d been dancing to had faded into the Imperial Anthem and a menacing presence was now filling the air. Vader’s presence. Leia’s hand slipped from Han’s grip, itching to reach for her lightsaber as she turned towards that dark miasma and saw the gleaming black helmet. Heard the distinctive whooshing. “Princess?” Han whispered, but his voice seemed a thousand parsecs away. “Leia?”

“G-go,” she stammered, moving away from him. “Go, I’m right behind you. Pooja Naberrie, she has auburn hair and a dress sort of like mine. And she knows what you look like.” Before Han could object, she broke away from him completely, slipping back in amongst the crowd. It was easy enough to avoid Vader, she just had to go where the crowd wasn’t parting to let him through.  _ Luke, _ she thought frantically, praying that their connection was strong enough not to be intercepted.  _ Luke, can you hear me? _

** _Leia._ ** The voice that said her name in her head was definitely not her brother’s. No. No, no, no, no, no, no. Her breath quickened as she tried to inch towards the edge of the room. Pooja was right,  _ Han _ was right, this plan was a mess and it was falling apart around her at that very moment. Desperately, she looked around, irrationally hoping that she might see her parents somewhere, that she could grab them, find Luke, and get out of here before Vader could catch them. Somehow. 

** _Leia_ ** _ , _ the voice thundered in her mind again. And she couldn’t run, not just because of her skirts but because that would only draw more attention to herself, the last thing she wanted. The crowd was starting to move away from her, she could hear his breathing far more clearly.  ** _You have nothing to fear from me._ **

_ Liar.  _ She didn’t even bother to shield that thought from him as she ducked between a serving droid and a pillar. She couldn’t leave Luke here, but with Vader closing in, the only thing she wanted to do was run. To be as far away from him as possible.  _ Luke, please. _

But there was no response. She couldn’t even sense her brother’s presence anymore. Sucking in a breath, she forced back the tears she could feel coming and slammed up her mental walls. She waited, listening to the sound of Vader’s breathing as it began to retreat and the sound of conversations began to pick up again. 

She’d been counting on having Luke by her side to face Vader, if she did it now, alone, she would probably be captured, just like Luke had. There was no other option. She had to leave and make the rendezvous with Pooja before everything fell apart.

Swallowing her fear, she started walking towards the doors where they’d entered, fighting the temptation to look back until she’d managed to make it out onto the palace steps. Staring up at the pale stone façade, she thought about her parents. About her brother.  _ I’ll come back for you, _ she swore.  _ I promise. _

* * *

“Are we allowed to be here?” Luke asked nervously, looking around the hall. He still wasn’t entirely sure how he had ended up here. He remembered coming in with Leia and Pooja, and trying not to just gawk at the splendor around him like the farm boy he was, and then suddenly, he had been face-to-face with a girl about his age, one with brilliant green eyes, freckled skin, and fiery red hair. The girl who had taken his hand and pulled him away from the crowd before he could even think to introduce himself. Before he could say anything at all.

“You have nothing to worry about,” she said, running a hand along his shoulders in a way that made him lose his train of thought again. “Why?” she smiled sweetly. “You’re not scared of me, are you?”

“I mean,” he swallowed nervously. “You did move kind of fast, and we didn’t actually introduce ourselves—”

“Mara,” she said, her smile shifting to a more aggressive one. “And don’t worry so much, you’re safe as long as you’re with me. Now, do I get to know  _ your _ name?”

“L-Luke,” he stammered, then cringed. He should have thought of an alias. “But I did come here with someone, I should probably go—”

“Luke,” Mara repeated, grabbing him tightly by the wrist. “Don’t worry about the Princess, you’ll be reunited once the Emperor gets to her.”

_ Luke, Luke, can you hear me? _ Leia’s voice rang out in his head and Luke jerked his hand away from Mara, reaching for his lightsaber. 

“Don’t even try it.” Mara held up the hilt with a smirk. “And don’t say anything to the Princess either. I can hear it. You two are complete amateurs. I can’t believe you ever thought you’d be able to get in here without getting caught.”

“Give that back, it was my father’s!” Luke lunged for the saber hilt, and Mara neatly stepped to the side, snickering as he had to brace himself against a pillar to keep from falling.

“Oh, was it?” she taunted, spinning it between her fingers. “Well, now it’s going on the wall with every other dead Jedi’s—”

“I said  _ give it back!” _ He reached out and poured his concentration into the thought of pulling it out of her grip. The silver cylinder flew through the air, hitting his palm at just the right angle for his fingers to close around the hilt and ignite it properly. Mara yawned and reached between the folds of her black skirts, pulling out her own saber hilt and activating the red blade. 

“Fine, if that’s how it’s going to be.” She spun the saber as she advanced, and Luke raised his arm to block her strike seconds before it would have hit him. His heart hammered violently in his chest, adrenaline coursing through his veins as he moved his saber in tandem with hers, deflecting the blows where he could. “Why does he want you?” Mara hissed, pushing him back against the nearest pillar. “What is so special about you?”

Luke swallowed, waiting for the blade to come nearer his neck, to cut him. But it never came. She was holding back. Had Vader told her to capture him? Had Ben been right in thinking Vader knew? How was that possible? Mara’s green eyes narrowed and she pressed him against the stone with a little more force, he could feel her knees brushing his. He knew they were fighting, but her proximity was distracting him. There was something about her that felt magnetic, alluring despite the danger.

_ Liar. Luke, please.  _ Leia’s voice in his head managed to snap him out of it.

“My father,” he managed to say, “he was Anakin Skywalker. That’s why.” Mara took a step back, her freckled brow furrowed as she continued to glare at him.

“If you’re going to lie to me, you could at least come up with a more believable one,” she scoffed, slashing at his stomach. Luke managed to deflect the strike and push her back, sending her across the hallway.

“It’s the truth!”

“Oh, and who was your mother? A magical desert princess?” She laughed mockingly as she sprang to her feet and charged him again, the crimson beam of her lightsaber spinning so quickly that it created a barrier Luke didn’t know how to break. 

“Mara.” The name comes from the deep, booming voice that Luke had only heard on holorecordings before tonight, accompanied by the steady sound of his respirator. “Enough.” Her saber deactivated and flew into the gloved hand of Darth Vader, who now stood in the doorway. 

“Your Majesty.” Mara snapped to attention, kneeling in front of him with her head down. “Master.” Vader gave her no acknowledgment. The black lenses of his masked eyes remained fixed on Luke. 

“Return to the hall, reassure the guests that there is no need for concern about my absence. Then make sure the security team is assembled for discipline. I will not have a repeat of tonight. The Princess simply walked out, that sort of incompetence is unacceptable.”

“Of course, your Majesty, but—”

“If you are so determined to be my Apprentice, you must understand that your desires are of no interest to me. Now  _ go.”  _ Mara got to her feet, shooting Luke one last glare as she bowed to Vader and slunk out a door Luke hadn’t noticed before. Vader moved towards Luke with a speed that seemed impossible, placing his empty hand on Luke’s cheek. It happened so fast and the gesture was so blatantly familial that Luke felt himself freeze. 

“Did she hurt you?” There was a flicker of concern and tenderness in Vader’s voice. Luke opened his mouth to reply, but it suddenly felt dry as the desert, and his tongue disconnected from his brain, so he shook his head. “You’re certain?” Luke nodded slowly. “You’re afraid of me.”

“It’s,” his voice cracked and he wet his lips, trying to get his courage up. “It’s a lot to take in. This isn’t how I imagined us meeting. Father.” The hand on his cheek moved slightly and he felt a shift in the Force. Maybe it was surprise?

“You know,” Vader said flatly. “I didn’t think Kenobi would have been willing to tell you even that much of the truth.”

“He told us about a lot of things,” Luke said, finding some hidden measure of strength he hadn’t known he had. “How you weren’t allowed to be with our mother. The nightmares. How the Emperor tricked you. What happened on Mustafar—”

“And you think you can succeed where your mother didn’t,” Vader cut him off, his hand moving from Luke’s face to pluck the old lightsaber out of his hand. “You came here because you believe I can be  _ saved _ .”

The way he said it made Luke feel incredibly small and stupid, and he looked down at his feet. “You have so much of her in you. Such compassion and blind faith. So determined to believe the best in people.” Vader paused, clearly lost in a memory Luke wished he could see. “But perhaps you are still young enough that you can come to understand what she did not. I do not need to be saved. I am exactly where I am meant to be. And now, so are you. Once your sister returns, we will be as we should have always been.”

“Leia won’t join you,” Luke pointed out bluntly. “She’s planning to kill you.”

“She has been poisoned against me by the Organas the same way Kenobi turned your mother against me. I will make her see reason.”

“Can’t,” he nearly lost his nerve as he looked up into the ominous midnight face, hoping that behind the mask, there was still something of the man his mother had loved. That Ben had considered his friend. “Can’t I be enough? I’ll stay with you, just let her go.”

Vader placed a hand on Luke’s shoulders and guided him down the hall. “I’ve had rooms prepared for you. After this insufferable party is over, we will speak. But you will not change my mind on this, Luke. You and your sister were taken from your rightful place. You both belong here, with me, ruling the galaxy. It is your destiny.”

“Father—”

“Son.” The single syllable left no room for argument. “Everything I have done is for your own good. The sooner you realize that, the easier all of this will be.”

* * *

If Leia had known that one day she would be going into the Imperial Palace with a lightsaber hilt hidden down the back of her dress, she would never have complained about being told to sit up straight as a child.

Pooja had insisted they contact Mon Mothma for reinforcements for tonight’s festivities. And that was after Leia had spent the entire night convincing her that she needed to go back at all. A part of her felt reassured knowing that there were several ships of people waiting to attack at a moment’s notice, even if they weren’t as close as she might have liked. The other part felt she might be inadvertently leading them into a slaughter. 

Vader had increased security, yet the same mind trick worked again to get her into the party. But then, he  _ wanted _ her inside. It was getting out that would be the challenge. As she entered the hall, she adjusted her hair, making sure any trace of the silver hilt was concealed by the long brown locks.

She’d chosen a golden yellow dress from her mother’s things tonight, one that left her shoulders bare while still being far more modest than the black dress from the previous night. It came with a sheer gold capelet that tucked into the embroidered corset and matched its scattered pattern of embroidered pink roses. The skirt was decorated with smaller white flowers, and long ribbons of pink, green, and white wrapped around the lower half of her sleeves. The matching headdress was an embroidered green ribbon across her forehead and two cauls of knit gold thread that held twin buns in place over her ears. That was probably her favorite part of the outfit, a little touch that reminded her of Alderaan. Of home.

The pleasant feeling of nostalgia dissipated as she felt the toxic presence of Vader drawing closer. Turning her head, she saw him cutting through the crowd, clearly headed for her. But she was ready this time. She would not let her fear get the better of her, she would stay strong. Luke needed her. Her parents needed her. So she stood, proud and resolute as his strides came to a stop in front of her. 

“It is customary for a subject to bow before her Emperor,” Vader intoned, staring down at her. 

“If I were to bow, it would imply that I respect you. Then I would be breaking the law by lying to you,” she retorted. There was an odd rumbling sound that clashed with the sound of his breathing. Was he  _ laughing? _

“I was a fool never to see how much of her there is in you.” Vader placed a hand on the small of her back, just below where her lightsaber ended and began to guide her rather forcefully toward the center of the dance floor. “Passionate and stubborn.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Leia hissed, staying rigid as he gripped her left hand tightly in his right. 

“Dancing with my daughter,” Vader replied calmly. 

“I am  _ not  _ your daughter,” she seethed. “Maybe you were once the man who sired me, maybe you once loved the woman who bore me. But you will never be my father. No true father could ever do the vile things you did.”

Vader’s hold tightened so much that she lost feeling in her fingers. “Given time, you will come to see past the lies Organa and Kenobi have fed you.”

“And if I don’t, what will you do?” she challenged, trying to pull away. He didn’t give her the chance. “Try to use the Force to convince me I should stay? Lock me in a cell until I admit defeat? Or just choke the life out of me like you did to your pregnant lover?”

“She was my wife.” 

Leia gawked at him in disbelief. Of all the things she’d said, the thing he chose to focus on was his marital status? “How does that make what you did to her any better?”

“She betrayed me—”

“You betrayed her first!” Leia cut him off viciously. “You turned to the Dark Side, you slaughtered children, you destroyed the Republic she fought to defend, and you have the gall to act like she somehow wronged  _ you _ ? You’re the reason she’s dead, and yet somehow, she still spent her last breath telling Obi-Wan that there was still  _ good _ in you.” That seemed to get his attention as she felt him still, his grip relaxing just enough that she could take a step back. “He told us about the night she died, the night we were born. And Luke, somehow, he believes what she said. But I know better.” 

She pulled her lightsaber from the back of her dress and ignited it, slicing off Vader’s left hand in one easy motion while the guests around them screamed. Every stormtrooper in the room raised their blasters. “ **Do not shoot her,”** Vader’s voice boomed throughout the room as he kept his gaze on Leia. “Put it down, child.”

“Let my parents go,” she countered. “Luke too.”

With his right hand, he drew his own saber. People were running in a panic, trying to leave the ballroom altogether, but Leia ignored them, charging straight at Vader with her lightsaber spinning. Vader blocked her easily, it was like slamming straight into a duracrete wall. “If I spared them, would you stay?” he challenged, swinging his blade and forcing her back as she tried to parry the blow. “I can give the order, have them released. Even drop the charges of treason that await them as members of the Rebel Alliance. All you would have to do is accept.”

“Or I could kill you and free the Galaxy from your influence once and for all!” She ducked as his blade spun towards her and slashed upwards in response, gasping as her lightsaber made contact with the control panel on his chest. Vader’s saber dropped to the ground as he stumbled away from her, his respirator suddenly slower and more fragmented in its breath moderation.

Leia’s hands trembled around her own saber, unable to believe what she was seeing. She started to step closer, fully prepared to finish the job when someone grabbed her from behind and began pulling her back. Blaster fire started to break out as Rebel commandos flooded into the room. “No, I can do it!” she shouted, thrashing in the unfamiliar grip. “I can do it, let go!”

But the commando ignored her, dragging her out of the palace and into a waiting speeder where Mon Mothma sat in the backseat. “Are you insane?” the older red-haired woman scolded as they took off, away from the chaos of the battle.

“You have to let me go back, I can still kill him—”

“And be killed yourself, followed by your parents? Absolutely not, I agreed to help you because I thought this was a rescue mission  _ only _ , Leia. Not suicide. You are not going back there again.”

“You can’t stop me, Mon,” Leia warned, eyes blazing. “I am doing this so that the Alliance will finally see its mission through. Vader is the greatest threat this galaxy faces, if taking his life costs me my own, that is a sacrifice I am willing to make. You know my parents would do the same.”

“Your parents can give their lives for the Alliance because they would know Alderaan had a secure future with you.”

“Not while Vader lives, it won’t,” Leia sighed. “He won’t have any qualms about using Alderaan to get me where he wants me. I  _ have _ to stop him. No matter the price.”

* * *

“He wants to see you.” Luke looked up from the workbench in the rooms he’d been provided to see Mara glowering in the doorway, her arms folded as she leaned against the frame. “In his quarters.”

“I don’t know where that is,” Luke pointed out as he set down the TIE fighter model that had been on the workbench, and Mara’s scowl deepened.

“Of  _ course _ you don’t. Come on.” She gestured for him to follow, and Luke shuffled after her, tugging at the clothes his father had provided. It was just a smidge too tight, and it made moving a bit uncomfortable.

“Mara, whatever it is I did to offend you, I’m sorry, I’m not trying to—”

“Exactly,” she cut him off, taking her lightsaber hilt from its clip on her waist and spinning it in her hand. “You’re not  _ trying _ to do anything, but you’re still taking everything I’ve wanted all my life. I think I’m allowed to be offended. And when are you going to give up the wide-eyed innocent farm boy act, it’s getting annoying.”

“It’s not an act, that’s just how I am.”

“Well, stop it. In fact, stop talking altogether.” They walked in silence for a few moments before Luke hesitantly tried to reach out with the Force. He could feel Mara’s resentment brewing on the surface, but there was something else beneath that, a feeling he didn’t recognize. He pulled back before it could get too invasive. “I felt that,” she growled. “Don’t do it again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Shut up.” She came to a stop in front of a large black door. “Well, this is where we part ways. You’ll talk with the Emperor, and I’m going to see about interrogating the Rebels we captured tonight.”

“ _ What?” _ Luke’s jaw dropped in disbelief as Mara smirked and began to saunter away. “Hey, that’s not fair, you can’t just drop information like that and then—”

**_Luke_**_._ His father’s voice boomed in his head. **_Come here._** The door opened with a hiss and Luke cautiously stepped inside. 

He hadn’t expected his father’s rooms to be  _ quite  _ so dark and foreboding, but at the same time, it wasn’t exactly surprising, especially when compared with the odd black sphere in the middle of the room. 

“Father?”

** _I am inside the hyperbaric chamber, Luke, you do not need to be afraid. _ **

“That doesn’t make anything that much clearer,” Luke pointed out as he drew closer. “What happened? Mara said there were Rebels captured, is Leia here?”

** _She is not. _ ** There was a long pause, and Luke was suddenly very aware of how empty a room could seem without the constant whooshing of Vader’s breathing.  ** _She cut off one of my hands and damaged the controls of my suit before escaping in the chaos. _ **

“Shouldn’t you be with a medical droid then? Or a real doctor? Someone who can help?” Luke asked, panic beginning to mount. “You could die.”

** _Her eyes. They are the same shape and color your mother’s were, did you know that?_ **

“Father, you need medical attention!”

** _And yet, tonight she made me realize that in all the time I knew Padmé, even at my most despicable moments, there was never such hatred in her eyes as there was tonight in Leia’s. _ **

Luke sighed and leaned against the wall of the chamber. This was clearly a one-sided conversation. And yet he could feel a change. A rising conflict of emotions radiating from within. 

** _If anything, I think you look at me the way your mother used to. _ **

“Father, please, let me get someone to help you,” Luke pleaded.

** _No, son, listen to me. I need you to do exactly as I tell you. There is very little time before your sister returns, and everything has to be ready._ **

* * *

This was it. Her last chance, maybe ever. And if she failed… No, failing wasn’t an option. Tugging the pale yellow silk of the backless dress she was wearing to try and afford herself a little more coverage. After the skirmish last night, those guests who were in attendance had generally donned clothes in much darker shades than she was wearing, and she could feel their eyes on her. 

_ I’m probably going to get arrested,  _ she thought warily, scanning the crowd for any familiar faces, friendly or otherwise. Vader’s presence was noticeably absent, was he lying in wait for her, masking himself?

“Excuse me,” a familiar voice carried across the room, and Leia’s head snapped around to see Luke standing on the daïs reserved for the throne, standing to the right of the ugly black chair. 

He looked unharmed. If nothing else, that was good, and Leia let herself exhale in relief. Then she noticed how he was dressed, with an onyx breastplate and chain-fastened cloak that looked identical to Vader’s over his burgundy velvet tunic. Standing straight and proud over everyone else, he looked every bit the Imperial Prince.  _ Luke, no.  _ Had it really been that easy for Vader to sway him to the Dark Side in two days? 

Then she spotted the auburn-haired girl next to him, and something about the two of them standing together made Leia’s neck prickle in warning. She could feel the anger radiating off the girl, and made out the shape of a lightsaber at her hip. A Hand of the Emperor, without a doubt. She wouldn’t be needed if Luke has turned completely, so that was a good sign, but then why didn’t Luke seem more worried?

“Emperor Vader extends his apologies for his absence,” Luke announced, the words sounding memorized. “In, uh, the light of last night’s events, he has taken the time to consider the future of the galaxy and tasked me with acting as his voice for this evening.”

Whispers ran through the room, most of them questioning who Luke even was, and a few remarked on his resemblance to Anakin Skywalker. The Hand reached for her lightsaber warningly and the murmurs stopped. Luke glanced back at the girl, and Leia felt a little wave of anger boiling in her stomach.  _ What is going on? _

“The first matter to address is the safety of Alderaan. As you all know, the planet has been under Imperial protection and the Queen and Viceroy guests of his Majesty here on Imperial Center following the disappearance of Princess Leia.” Luke’s eyes finally locked with his twin’s, and Leia hated how unreadable they were. “As of tonight, those protective measures are no longer necessary. The Royal Family will be returning home tonight to oversee the Navy’s withdrawal from Alderaanian space.”

Everything else disappeared from Leia’s mind in an instant. Her parents were free. Alderaan was safe. How Luke had managed it, she didn’t know, but he had. She saw them, emerging from the curtained antechamber, joining the assembled guests, and it took everything she had not to run to them. Then it registered to her that Luke was still talking.

“Given the circumstances, the Emperor wants me to assure all of you that arrangements are being made for the succession,” Luke’s gaze remained steadily on Leia. “Their names are being held secret for their own protection, but he wants it known that,” he paused and swallowed. “That the true heirs of the galaxy are those who see with the eyes of Padmé Amidala.” 

Leia turned away. How could she do anything else? Luke might not have turned to the Dark Side, but this was just as much a betrayal as if he had. “Lelila?” The sound of her childhood name on her mother’s lips made her look back and run into Breha’s arms. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” she heard her father’s hoarse whisper, felt his hand on her hair as they held each other for a moment. 

“Let’s go home,” she begged, grabbing their hands. “Now.” They didn’t object as she pulled them away. 

_ Leia,  _ she heard Luke’s voice pleading in her mind.  _ Wait, I can explain, don’t—  _

She shut him out without a moment’s hesitation, and the way the stormtroopers relaxed their grip on their blasters as she passed with her parents told her that Luke wasn’t going to stop her. Good, he owed her at least that much after a betrayal like this. But the further she got from her twin, the more the questions rose. “Leia?” Her mother’s voice pulled her back to reality. “Are you alright?”

“As soon as we get out of here, I will be,” she lied, hurrying to the waiting speeder manned by one of Mon’s aides.  _ What does 'the eyes of Padmé Amidala' even mean? _

* * *

“I did everything just like you told me.” Vader opened his eyes at the sound of his son’s voice. From the viewscreen inside the hyperbaric chamber, he could see Luke shifting nervously. “She left with the Organas, she wouldn’t even talk to me.”

The news didn’t surprise Vader.  ** _I did what I could, she is under no obligation, _ ** he informed Luke calmly.

“So, now we can see about getting you properly treated?” his son prompted, and Vader wheezed out a laugh he knew his son couldn’t hear.

** _There are droids coming to move this chamber into a shuttle that will take us to Naboo._ **

“Is there a special medcenter on Naboo I don’t know about?” Luke asked skeptically. “You need treatment, you haven’t left this chamber since last night.”

Vader closed his eyes, letting out a long sigh. Luke wasn’t ready. His heart was still tender, there was still so much he hadn’t learned to hide from the world.  ** _You’ll understand when we arrive. _ **


	4. Ever After

Going home to Alderaan was everything Leia had wanted for months. Finally seeing it come into view should have been a relief. But what Luke had said at the palace kept echoing in her mind. Haunting her.

“Leia?” She turned to see her mother standing at the entrance of the stateroom. “Do you want to talk about what’s troubling you?”

“I’m fine, Mother,” she lied.

“When has that ever worked on me?” Breha chided, moving to sit next to her and gaze out the viewport at the growing sight of their home. “Come on, you can tell me the truth.”

“I don’t even know what the truth is anymore. I just keep questioning everything.” Leia pulled her knees up to her chest and gave a heavy sigh. “And shouldn’t I go back? If it’s even possible I can finish all of this—”

“You sound so much like your mother.” Breha reached over to tuck a loose strand of hair behind Leia’s ear, and Leia caught her hand.

“_ You’re _ my mother.”

“You can have two mothers, sweetheart. Force knows I’ve tried my best to love you, not just for myself, but for Padmé.” Leia looked away, prompting her mother to frown. “These last months haven’t been easy for me, I’m sure they were even worse for you. It’s alright for you to be uncertain.”

“I’m not uncertain,” Leia huffed defensively. “I know who I am. I’m just torn about whether or not it’s worth the risk to go back and claim the Empire outright—”

“I’m not talking about politics.” Her mother pursed her lips, and Leia fought the urge to scream. “It’s alright if you're not ready to go back to Alderaan yet.”

“Of course I am,” Leia protested hotly. Her mother only looked at her in that annoyingly perceptive way all mothers seem to have, saying nothing until Leia felt her anxieties bubble over. “Where do I even go, if not home?”

“I've already had one of the smaller ships prepared for you.” Breha kissed her on the forehead. “And programmed a destination in its navi-computer.”

In spite of herself, Leia smiled, just a little. It was so like her mother to think of everything. 

* * *

“I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I, but he won’t listen to me.” Luke stared at the holo of Mara in front of him. “You really do need to go, Mara. I don’t want you to be in danger.”

“I can handle myself,” she bristled defensively. She’d been on edge since Vader had told her the truth about the twins, and his intentions for the succession, and Luke was torn between frustration and sympathy. He knew none of this change could be easy for her, but her childish behavior was making it difficult to talk to her. 

“I know you can,” he said, fighting a sigh, “but enough people have been hurt already. I don’t want to add you to that list.”

Mara’s face twitched slightly as she folded her arms. “If you keep caring about everyone, _ you’re _the one who’s going to get hurt.” Luke glanced back at his father’s hyperbaric chamber.

“You may be right, but it’s who I am.” Green eyes met blue, stretching into a silence that neither of them seemed to know how to fill. “Just for a little while,” Luke said finally. “I have your frequency, I’ll send word as soon as I know what’s happening. Can you lie low for that long? Please?”

“You are going far out of your way to help someone who was basically kidnapping you two days ago.”

“You’re worth helping.” He managed to smile a little. “There’s good in you, Mara Jade. I can feel it.”

“_ Ugh.” _She rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll get off-world. But you comm me as soon as possible.”

“Deal.” The navi-computer beeped in front of him, they were entering Naboo’s airspace. “I have to prep for landing now. I’ll see you soon.” Mara didn’t say anything in reply, just cut the transmission. Luke sighed and turned to the hyperbaric chamber. “Father?”

** _Yes, I know. Just follow the programmed coordinates to our landing site._ **

* * *

The dead weren’t buried on Naboo. Leia had learned that when she was a child, Tsabin had explained that the custom was for those who passed to be cremated, their ashes poured into the Solleu River so their spirit could replenish the planet. The only exception, in all of Naboo’s history, was Padmé Naberrie Amidala. The beloved Queen had instead been interred in a grand mausoleum on the outskirts of Theed. 

It was there that Leia now found herself, hovering at the entrance of the tomb. She could see the stained glass portrait of Amidala on the far side of the sepulcher, the raised emblem of the Royal House of Naboo on the sarcophagus. And standing there, still wearing the yellow and purple gown of her birth mother, Leia felt like a ghost. “Why?” The single word came out in a rasp. “Why did you have to love _ him _, of all people?” 

The anger finally carried her forward into the tomb, each step punctuating her words. “Were you really so blind to what he was? How could you possibly believe there was good in him when he was the one who killed you? How could you give up so easily, how could you do that to the galaxy? To Luke? To me? I’ve looked up to you all my life! And you abandoned all of us!” She slumped against the coffin, her body shaking with sobs. “_ Why?” _

“I wondered the same thing so many times all these years.” The deep voice and the mechanical breathing were unmistakable, even if they sounded weaker than she remembered. Every muscle in her body stiffened as she fought the urge to look over her shoulder at Vader. “I did not expect you to be here. But I am glad you are.”

“Be even gladder I left my lightsaber behind,” she hissed. “Or I’d finish what I started last night.”

“Leia, please.” Of course Luke was here. She scowled at the sound of his voice, even if he couldn’t see it. 

“Both of you, get away from me. I want nothing to do with either of you.”

“It won’t be long now.” Vader wheezed. “Luke. Help me take this mask off.”

“Father, _ no, _that would—”

“I want to see you both with my own eyes. Please.” 

Leia’s curiosity won out, and she glanced back to see Luke fumbling with the pieces of Vader’s mask as the two of them knelt on the ground. They came free with a slow hiss, revealing a deathly pale face, scarred and withered and pathetic and her lip curled in disgust at the sight of it. Luke dropped the black helmet, grabbing Vader’s hand. “Father, there’s still a chance—”

“No.” Without the suit, his voice had lost all its menace and resonance. He sounded human, and pitifully so. “No, Luke, you can’t save me from this. This should have been over a long time ago. After what I did to your mother…”

“I agree with Luke,” Leia snapped bitterly. Vader looked up at her with eyes the same shade of pale blue as Luke’s. They were actually hopeful, and Leia almost felt guilty for what she was about to say. Almost. “You _ should _ live. If only so you can stand trial for all your crimes, _ then _ be executed. You shouldn’t get to die _ here.” _

“Are you willing to risk our connection being exposed?” Of all the things Leia had expected him to say, that was not it. But it was effective. She’d rather die than have the galaxy know the truth about him. “I am sorry, Leia. You owe me nothing, certainly not forgiveness, but,” he trailed off in a coughing fit, “but I do love you. Both of you. That is why I left the Galaxy to you. Rule the Empire, rebuild the Republic, reject it outright, it is your decision. I know you’ll do what you know is right, just like your mother would have done.”

His gloved hand reached out to her, and she saw tears glistening on his scarred cheek. “She would have been so proud of both of you. You are both,” the coughing overtook him again, “more than we ever dreamed.” He closed his eyes, tilting his head backward. “You’ve been apart for too long. Don’t let it happen again. She would want you together.”

Leia opened her mouth to make some harsh retort about how their separation was his fault in the first place, but she didn’t get the chance. There was an unfamiliar shift in the Force, and then suddenly, she couldn’t feel Vader’s presence anymore. “No,” Luke whispered hoarsely, shaking the body. “Father, no.”

“He’s not worth it, Luke,” Leia said harshly, brushing past her brother and the black-clad corpse, intent on leaving the tomb as quickly as possible. “We have to act before some power-hungry idiot tries to claim the Empire, come on.”

“We can’t just leave him here like this.”

“Maybe you can’t,” Leia huffed. “But I can. Like he said, we owe him nothing.”

“Just five minutes, Leia, it’ll go faster if you help me.” She could see in his mind what he wanted to do, to open the sarcophagus and place Vader next to the body of their mother. “Please. For my sake.”

“No.” She shook her head, biting her lip as he looked at her with tearful despondency. “I’m sorry, Luke, I just can’t. I don’t see what you saw in him. I don’t care about him. I just want to forget him.”

“You’re claiming an inheritance he left you.”

“Because I’m the only person who can do it and make things right! You don’t know the first thing about politics—”

“Then go,” Luke cut her off hoarsely. “I won’t stop you. And I don’t want to fight you. You’re my sister and I love you, nothing is going to change that.”

“If you don’t want to fight me, then don’t fight me. Let’s go.” But he didn’t move. “_ Luke.” _

“Go,” he repeated. “I’ll find my way back to you. I promise.” She knew he meant it. Luke was too good not to make a promise he wouldn’t keep.

“I love you too,” she managed to say, swallowing back tears she hadn’t realized were rising. “Don’t take too long.”

“I won’t.” And with that, they both turned away from each other, Leia heading back to her ship while her heart hammered in her ears.

* * *

ONE YEAR LATER

* * *

“Take a break.”

“I’m in the middle of working out the executive branch’s term limits and election cycles.”

“Leia.” She looked up at her father, standing in the door of her office. “You’ve been working for hours already today. Did you even sleep last night?”

She looked down guiltily and winced at the sight of her pale skin, hollow cheeks, and the bags under her eyes reflecting in the polished black lacquer of her desk. It was true, she hadn’t been taking very good care of herself since assuming control of the Empire, but she had a good reason! The faster she worked, the sooner she could officially dissolve it and restore the Republic for good. “I napped,” she offered weakly.

“Maybe I should tell your brother this is a bad time—”

“Luke’s here?” The mention of her twin made Leia perk up considerably, it had been ages since she’d seen him in person. He had technically kept his word and come to see her after that day at their mother’s tomb, but he hadn’t stayed long. The reason he’d given was ‘going back to Dagobah and starting a new Jedi Order, like you’re doing with the Republic,’ but she’d suspected there was more to it that he didn’t want her knowing, something that he hadn’t told her. 

Not to mention the fact that she’d tried very hard for the last year to not think about that part of her heritage. She would have loved to forget it altogether, but with Luke in training, the subject would inevitably creep its way into their conversation, and neither of them would know how to talk about it. Those feelings of awkwardness and unease would resurface any time the two of them managed to get in contact through comms, but she always pushed them down, just like she was doing now. It would be wonderful to see him again.

“Yes, Luke is here,” her father confirmed. “He’s with a group from the new Jedi Order, they’re investigating the Imperial Palace for any Jedi relics that might have survived. But he split off from them to come see you.”

“Why wasn’t I informed about this mission?” Leia asked with a huff, setting aside her datapad. “I would’ve cleared my schedule a little if I’d known Luke was coming!”

“I cleared your schedule,” Bail chuckled slightly. “Take the day, spend some time with your brother.”

“Thank you, Papa.” Leia got up from behind her desk and pressed a kiss to his cheek before heading out into her receiving room. 

“Leia!” Luke’s voice rang out, still bright and clear as she remembered it. Before she could turn to see him, he rushed at her for a hug so quickly that it knocked the wind out of her. “Force, I missed you!”

“Luke,” she gasped. “Can’t breathe.”

“Sorry.” He took a step back, blushing a little. “I’m just so happy to see you again.”

“I’m glad to see you too,” Leia smiled as she took in the sight of him. He was dressed in the off-white layered robes of the Jedi, and while it wasn’t a look she _ loved _ , it was far better than the Imperial attire he’d worn the last time they’d been together. “But what in all the kriffing hells is _ that?” _She pointed to the rattail of blond hair that dangled from the right side of his head, and heard her father chuckling as he passed by them on his way out. 

“My Padawan braid,” Luke mumbled. “I didn’t want to crop my hair completely, but Ahsoka insisted that I had to have the braid, at least. Though she might have been teasing me.”

“Ahsoka?” repeated Leia excitedly. “Not Ahsoka Tano? The last I heard of her, she’d been reported missing in action, presumed dead!” She’d never met the Togruta ex-Jedi, but she’d heard the stories of Fulcrum. Despite her parents’ best efforts. The woman was supposed to be incredible. 

“That’s her. We actually ran into each other while we were looking for new recruits. And now she’s teaching me.”

“We being you, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, and Yoda?”

“We being me, Ahsoka, and Mara, actually.”

“Mara.” She knew that name, why did she know that name?

“Promise me you won’t be mad.”

“Why would I be mad?” Leia’s eyes narrowed. “Luke, what did you do?”

“_ Promise, _” her twin pleaded, gazing at her with wide blue eyes. Leia groaned and nodded in reluctant consent. “Mara is Mara Jade, she used to be the Emperor’s Hand.”

“_ What?” _

“You promised you wouldn’t be mad!”

“That was before I knew you were aiding and abetting a wanted fugitive!” Leia hissed. “How could you keep something like this from me?”

“Because I didn’t want you to be reacting exactly like this!” Luke sighed. “Leia, she’s _ not _your enemy. It’s not her fault that she got conscripted into serving the Emperor as a child, if you would just give her a chance, you’d see—”

“But she chose to work for Vader! Siding with the Empire is not something that can just be forgiven and forgotten!”

“Leia.” Luke seemed wounded by the mention of Vader, and that just made her more annoyed. “People can change, they can choose to be good—”

“Don’t.” She cut him off. “Just don’t, Luke. I don’t want to get into an argument with you about _ him. _ I don’t think you do either. But I _ don’t _trust Mara Jade, and I don’t want her to hurt you.”

Luke sighed, looking past her. “I told you.”

Leia glanced over her shoulder to see the ghostly blue figure of a man their age wearing robes similar to Luke’s. Then she rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn’t imagining him. “Hello, Leia,” the man said, giving her a weak smile. 

She furrowed her brow at him, trying to place what made him so familiar to her. He wasn’t exactly the kind of man one easily forgot, blond hair, blue eyes, handsome chiseled features, and a scar over his right eye, but his name completely escaped her. He didn’t say anything for the longest time, just letting her keep looking at him. Then… “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For never being the father I should have been.” Just like that, it fell into place. This was Anakin Skywalker. Darth Vader. Leia stepped back from him, knocking against Luke, who placed his hands on her shoulders.

“Let me go.”

“I told you,” Luke repeated. “She’s not ready, she needs more time—”

“That’s not how this works,” the ghost interrupted gently. “I will not let this divide between the two of you grow any further, it would break your mother’s heart.”

“I think you already managed that when you murdered her.”

“Leia, stop it.”

“No, Luke, Leia is not obligated to forgive me. There are far too many sins in my past for me to ever truly deserve that. And Leia.” She looked away, squeezing her eyes shut. The ghost still kept speaking. “Do not let your anger at me rule your life.”

“Then get out of my life,” she growled, still not looking at him.

“Not before I tell you this.” He sounded more resigned than anything else. “Hating me isn’t going to change anything. It’ll only leave a wound festering, a darkness building within you that will eventually alienate you from the people you love. If you want to avoid going down the same path I did, then listen to me now. Please. Don’t let your anger consume you the way mine did. For the sake of the people who love you.”

“Including you?” she asked scathingly, finally opening her eyes so that he would have to look in them when he made his excuses.

“No,” he answered simply, his face annoyingly serene. “Not including me. I _ do _ love you, Leia, but I know that means nothing to you. I didn’t come here to convince you otherwise. Just to warn you against making mistakes like mine.”

“Fine, you’ve warned me, now ** _leave me alone!_ **” Leia shouted it so forcefully that the vase of ryoo blossoms from Naboo and the crystal bottle of Alderaanian toniray on the end table shattered, and several of the paintings hanging on the wall were knocked off their hooks. Luke’s grip on her shoulders loosened as he stepped back, while the ghost just bowed his head, sighing as he began to fade from view. Leia looked back at her brother, her heart pounding. “I didn’t mean to, I—”

“It’s okay, we’ll go to the Temple, Ahsoka can—”

“** _No_ ** _ !” _ She pushed him away and started running frantically, not stopping even as Luke called after her. She passed Senators and Representatives, droids and civilians, until she finally found an empty office she could lock herself inside. Slumping against the wall, she sank down to the floor, hugging her knees tightly to her chest as the exhaustion and anxiety overwhelmed her and plunged her into blackness.

The dark didn’t stay with her long, dissolving into a vaguely familiar room that it took her a moment to place. It was definitely Luke’s room back in his aunt and uncle’s homestead on Tatooine, judging by the bleak brown walls and the outdated technology, but it looked different somehow. Newer.

“I wasn’t blind.” She turned to see a beautiful young brunette in a blue dress standing in the doorway. “I saw the dark and light at war within him for longer than you might realize.” As she drew closer, Leia recognized the kind brown eyes and sad smile of the woman she’d dreamed about as a child.

“Hell of a time to finally show yourself, Mother,” she said dryly.

“I don’t have the luxury of manifesting through the Force like your father does, sweetheart, my options for visiting you are limited.” Padmé Amidala moved to her daughter’s side, placing a hand on her cheek. Leia was too exhausted not to let her, and the touch was warm and reassuring. “I didn’t choose Anakin. We don’t really choose the people we love, only whether or not we will follow our hearts. And both of us grew up in worlds that forced us to hide our hearts for so long,” she paused, shaking her head, “we were children, really. Uncertain of anything except that we loved each other. We did our best to make it work, but we were trying to build something in a time of war and destruction.”

“You did an absolutely wizard job of it.”

Padmé ignored the barb and stepped forward, running her hand along one of the countertops. “It was right here that I saw him at what I thought would be his darkest. He’d come here to save his mother, but he was too late. The grief,” she sighed, “it wasn’t something he was prepared for. Nor for everything that came after. The pain, the rage, the _ darkness, _it nearly consumed him.”

“And you still decided to be with him.”

“You’re more like him than you want to admit. You’re a good person, Leia. And he was too. But for the people he loved, he would do anything, even the most awful things. And he just kept _ losing _ people he cared about, so when he learned I was pregnant with you and your brother, and the nightmares came—”

“Obi-Wan did tell me that part of the story. He sold his soul to the Emperor to save you, then he almost killed you,” Leia cut her off. “And yet you somehow still believed there could be good in him.”

“Well, I was right, wasn’t I?” Padmé asked, the slightest smile playing on her lips. “In the end."

“That doesn’t erase the twenty years of awful things that he did.”

“No, it doesn’t. But choices made with the best of intentions can be devastating, regardless of who makes them. Do you blame me for Palpatine rising to power?”

“No, but—”

“He would never have been Chancellor if I had not called for a vote of no confidence against Finis Valorum. He wouldn’t have received emergency power if I had not taken Anakin with me to rescue Obi-Wan on Geonosis.”

“He orchestrated—” Leia stopped and groaned. “That’s the lesson, isn’t it?”

“Just a little.” Padmé’s smile grew slightly, though it remained compassionate. “I’m sure you’re tired of hearing it by now.”

“That I should forgive Vader? Yes, I am. It’s not going to happen.”

“You don’t have to forgive him, Leia. But you do have to live with the reality that he _ is _ your father. Even if the rest of the galaxy never knows what happened to him, you are part of his legacy, and you have to face it, good and bad. It’s not going to leave you, no matter how much you spend the rest of your life trying to hide from it.”

“And what about the fact that you just gave up on us?” Leia asked, not entirely ready to leave her anger behind. “You had two children to live for! A galaxy that needed you!”

The serenity disappeared from her birth mother’s face, replaced by a cold kind of determination. “I did not give up on you, or the galaxy. There was nothing I wanted more than to raise you. To keep you safe. To see the Republic restored. I was fighting in those last moments, clinging to life even as I felt it draining out of me. If it was a choice, it wasn’t one I made. Now, are you quite done looking for people to blame instead of actually facing your problems?”

The accusation cut Leia to the core, stripping away the layers of armor she’d worked so hard to build around herself until she was laid bare under her mother’s unflinching brown gaze. Forced to reckon with herself and confront what remained. 

When she really thought about it, she could grudgingly accept that she might have been slightly overzealous in her judgment of Vader. Anakin. Whatever. She could deal with using both names. She could acknowledge he’d provided half her genetic material and married her mother. She could even stomach the idea of learning more about the Force, the unwanted inheritance he’d left her. But she would never consider him her father. The good he’d done in his life did not outweigh the evil. But maybe the evil didn’t outweigh the good either. The uneasy balance made her slightly nauseous. “I don’t even know where to start,” she admitted.

“Well, you do have a brother, sweetheart. But I think you’d also benefit quite a bit if you were to talk with Ahsoka Tano.”

“Why?”

“That’s her story to tell, not mine, Leia. But believe me when I say she might be the best person in the galaxy to help you navigate this path.” Padmé’s form and the room around them shimmered, and Leia realized she was waking up. “You have always been loved, my daughter. I hope you can remember that.”

“Mother, I…” The dream dissolved and she saw her brother crouching in front of her, concern etched in his features.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I’m sorry for what happened earlier.”

“No, it’s okay. This has been harder for you than it had for me, I know that. I told him you weren’t ready, I wanted to ease you into it more.” He sat beside her and reached out to take her hand, squeezing it tightly. “He’s stubborn.”

“Well, I guess I take after him a little.” Luke looked at her, his disbelief clear both on his face and through the Force. Leia gave him a weak smile. “I might have had a little visit with our Mother. And gotten dressed down for how I’ve been acting all this time.”

“You got to see Mother?” The disbelief changed to a mild form of envy. “I’ve been trying to reach her for a year without results, I thought it must have been because she wasn’t a Jedi. But I guess not.”

“Oh, Luke,” Leia rubbed his shoulders gently with her free hand. “I’m sure you’ll see her someday. Maybe when you have your Jedi graduation.”

“Trials.”

“However it works. My own education’s never going to get that far.”

“Your own education? You mean you want to learn?” Luke’s face lit up like a star. “Really?”

“Don’t look so excited, I’m not going to get to the point where I have one of these.” She tugged at his Padawan braid playfully, and he laughed, moving it out of her grip.

“And just to make it fair, you can teach me about some political stuff too.”

“You probably need that, considering you’re dating a fugitive.”

“I’m not dating her!” Luke’s entire face turned bright red.

“Oh, but you want to be!” Leia snickered. “I had a feeling you had a crush on her!”

“I’m not vouching for her just because I like her, she’s a good person,” her brother insisted. “Obi-Wan and Yoda can back me up.”

“I don’t exactly have a high opinion of either of them, you’re not helping your case.”

“_ Leia! _”

“Alright, alright, I’ll move her to probationary status if it means that much to you.” She hugged him. “But just because you’re my brother and I love you.”

“I love you too.” He kissed her on the forehead. “And thank you.” Extending a hand, he helped her get to her feet. “So. We still have some time left on your day off. What do you want to do?”

“I feel like you should pick, you’re my guest,” Leia pointed out.

“Well,” he paused and laughed a little, “I kind of was hoping you might be willing to take me shopping. Help me get a wardrobe that would live up to our mother’s legacy.”

Leia blinked, sure she’d misheard him. “What?”

“Well, you inherited her actual clothes,” he explained, “but we’re both her successors, right? Only seems fair that I get to look the part too.”

“Are Jedi even allowed to have the kind of wardrobe that a politician from Naboo would wear?” Leia asked, looping her arm through his as they left the office. “You’re wearing the old robes.”

“If you can change an entire system of government, I think I can rewrite the Jedi dress code.”

“All jokes aside,” Leia stopped and looked at Luke earnestly. “She’s proud of us. She didn’t say it, but I know it. What we’re doing, it’ll ensure that no one has to go through what she did.”

“What any of our family members did,” he added, nodding in agreement. “You’re right, Leia, I don’t think she could ask for a better legacy.”


End file.
